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Component 1 Edexcel Politics
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2021 PAST PAPER1 Democracy & Participation
The UK is suffering from a participation crisis. How far do you agree with this viewpoint
on political participation in the UK?
Keywords:
Participation crisis- the lack of citizens
participating in decision-making/ voting
Order of argument:
● Agree- Decline in GE since 1970
● Disagree- high turnout for
INTRO ●
important cases
Agree- Happathy & apathy
Judgement:
The viewpoint that agrees with this
statement is more convincing as there is
clear evidence of falling participation
levels in elections over the last 50 years
Point: Agree
- Clear decline of participation in general
elections since the 1970s.
- people may be turning to new methods
of expression because they feel that
conventional politics (voting) has let them
down
- membership of pressure groups
particularly those concerned with single
issues (such as the environment) is now a
Paragraph 1: Decline in new form of doing conventional politics,
hence their increase in subscriptions
GE since 1970 - Last decade have seen an emergence of
social media, has brought people,
especially young people, to exchange
politically views and participate in online
campaigns on particular issues without
engaging with the real world
Evidence:
- Turnout in GE has been falling since
1979 :
● 1979 -76%
● 1950 -84%
, ● 2001 -59%
- the rise of social media has resulted in e-
democracy, which may be supporting e-
petitions which allows people to register a
viewpoint online
● E.g e- petition on the Downing
street website in 2007, against
proposals for road-charging- was
signed by 1.8million people
Judgement:
Evidence clearly shows that there's been a
decline in participation due to the new
methods of being able to effectively voice
your viewpoints.
Society today are simply uninvolved in
traditional politics
Point: Disagree
Political participation turnouts are often
higher if the election is seen as important.
Example:
1992- due to a Rational choice voting
(voters making a decision based on what
will benefit them and their families)
● John Major, leader of the
conservative party, was victorious,
● because many people still feared
Labour’s revolutionary socialist
tendencies like high taxation.
● Many of the electorate in C1 and C2
voted for the conservatives in the
interests of protecting their wages
Paragraph 2: high 2014- Scottish Independence Referendum
● Usually very high turnouts in
turnout for important referendums that are key
elections constitutional issues
● 86% high turnout
2017- Theresa May substituted her focus
on Brexit for her new ‘Triple Whammy’
policy (policy that put a cut in pension
funding- essentially telling the elderly that
they’ll have to start paying for more of
their own social care- to the conservative
party’s core voters- the elderly)
● as she took a new interest in
focusing on young people rather
than the ‘old’.
● She lost many of her core voters to
, Labour as in their SM drive they
managed to reassure the elderly
that their manifesto will protect
them
Analysis:
Evidence that people make sure they vote
on important matters, especially in 1992
knowing that high taxation could badly
affect them, 2014 Scottish believe in their
independent identity therefore many
people would vote on leaving and 2017,
Labour gained many votes because of
their manifesto rejecting the
conservatives awful triple whammy policy.
This shows that there isn’t a participation
crisis as important elections that shape
and have a huge impact on the
constitution matter more than smaller
matters therefore, these important
elections are not being neglected shows
that the British electorate have not given
up on voting
Judgement (Counter):
weaker argument as each year turnouts
decline
Point: Agree
Happathy: electorate is content with
current government and happy enough
with status quo
Apathy: the electorate has no or little
desire to participate in elections
Example:
Happathy:
● 2001 Tony Blair (labour win) with
only 59% - it was the lowest ever
GE turnout but people were really
Paragraph 3: Happathy happy and confident with Tony
Blair therefore they didn’t see the
& Apathy need to vote
Apathy:
● 70% of 18-21 year olds do not vote
● 47% of ethnic minorities (the Black
and Chinese community being the
highest group) do not vote in
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