{"title":"The impact of local identities on voting behaviour: a Scouse case study","authors":"David Jeffery","doi":"10.1057/s41293-023-00242-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The political salience of local identities has received limited academic attention in the British political science literature. This paper is a step towards addressing this, through a case study of the Scouse identity. The Scouse identity is primarily found in the English city of Liverpool, Merseyside and its environs. Using original survey data of electors from across Merseyside, alongside the British Election Study, this paper explores the political salience and consequences of the Scouse identity and places it in the comparative context of sub-state national identities across Great Britain, namely Englishness, Scottishness, and Welshness. I find that holding a Scouse identity leads to higher levels of Labour support and lower levels of Conservative and Green support, that the political consequences of the Scouse identity vary across Merseyside, and that local identities can and do exist alongside sub-state national identities, challenging the myth of ‘Scouse not English’. Put simply, local identities can and do matter when it comes to shaping voting behaviour.","PeriodicalId":46067,"journal":{"name":"British Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Politics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-023-00242-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract The political salience of local identities has received limited academic attention in the British political science literature. This paper is a step towards addressing this, through a case study of the Scouse identity. The Scouse identity is primarily found in the English city of Liverpool, Merseyside and its environs. Using original survey data of electors from across Merseyside, alongside the British Election Study, this paper explores the political salience and consequences of the Scouse identity and places it in the comparative context of sub-state national identities across Great Britain, namely Englishness, Scottishness, and Welshness. I find that holding a Scouse identity leads to higher levels of Labour support and lower levels of Conservative and Green support, that the political consequences of the Scouse identity vary across Merseyside, and that local identities can and do exist alongside sub-state national identities, challenging the myth of ‘Scouse not English’. Put simply, local identities can and do matter when it comes to shaping voting behaviour.
期刊介绍:
British Politics offers the only forum explicitly designed to promote research in British political studies, and seeks to provide a counterweight to the growing fragmentation of this field during recent years. To this end, the journal aims to promote a more holistic understanding of British politics by encouraging a closer integration between theoretical and empirical research, between historical and contemporary analyses, and by fostering a conception of British politics as a broad and multi-disciplinary field of study. This incorporates a range of sub-fields, including psephology, policy analysis, regional studies, comparative politics, institutional analysis, political theory, political economy, historical analysis, cultural studies and social policy.
While recognising the validity and the importance of research into specific aspects of British politics, the journal takes it to be a guiding principle that such research is more useful, and indeed meaningful, if it is related to the field of British politics in a broader and fuller sense.
The scope of the journal will therefore be broad, incorporating a range of research papers and review articles from all theoretical perspectives, and on all aspects of British politics, including policy developments, institutional change and political behaviour. Priority will, however, be given to contributions which link contemporary developments in British politics to theoretical and/or historical analyses. The aim is as much to encourage the development of empirical research that is theoretically rigorous and informed, as it is to encourage the empirical application of theoretical work (or at least to encourage theorists to explicitly signify how their work could be applied in an empirical manner).