Thesis
Values or politics? Explaining changing attitudes in England towards the welfare state and the UK’s membership of the European Union between 1987 and 2016
- Creator
- Rights statement
- Awarding institution
- University of Strathclyde
- Date of award
- 2025
- Thesis identifier
- T17443
- Person Identifier (Local)
- 202054538
- Qualification Level
- Qualification Name
- Department, School or Faculty
- Abstract
- Individuals might formulate their attitudes towards key policy issues around a set of core values. Alternatively, they might utilise endorsement heuristics and calibrate their attitudes to match the position of a trusted source of information, such as their preferred political party. Meanwhile, if a party changes its stance on a policy issue, its identifiers might be expected to respond by adjusting their own views to match this new position. But are political parties able to shape the attitudes of their supporters with a change in policy position irrespective of those supporters’ values? This study merges three decades’ worth of data from the British Social Attitudes survey (BSA) to test these theoretical questions, considering changing attitudes in England using a novel dataset comprised of 80,617 respondents. More specifically, it examines the role of core values, partisan identity, and shifting party cues in the formulation of attitudes towards the welfare state and the UK’s membership of the European Union between 1987 and 2016. Results demonstrate that attitudes in both areas are powerfully structured by libertarian authoritarian or ‘social’ values, with authoritarianism linked to the adoption of anti-welfare and Eurosceptic attitudes. They also highlight that the views of party identifiers typically follow the policy position of their preferred party. In recent years, however, results suggest that the Labour party may have faced difficulties in carrying its supporters from across the social value spectrum with it in its chosen policy direction. This study makes an original and substantial contribution to knowledge by extending our understanding of attitudinal structure and change, the role of parties as opinion leaders, and the drivers of ideological polarisation.
- Advisor / supervisor
- Curtice, John
- Bradshaw, Paul, 1977-
- Deeming, Christopher
- Resource Type
- DOI
- Funder
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PDF of thesis T17443 | 2025-08-20 | Public | Download |