Essay : To what extent does democracy in the UK suffer from a ‘participation crisis’?
Political participation is defined as opportunities for and tendencies of the people to become involved in the political process. At a minimum level this will involve voting, but may also involve active work in political parties and pressure groups. At the higher/highest level it implies standing for public office. However with regards to the United Kingdom suffering from a participation crisis, I would like to agree. Simply because, there has been a low turnout at general elections, which undermines the mandate of the government and threatens the idea that the UK is a representative democracy. Between 1922 and 1997 turnout remained above 71%. At the 2001 general election the turnout was59.4%; in 2005 it was 61.4%; in 2010 it was 65.1%; and in 2015 it was66.1%. Various people may consider the minor increase in percentage but overall there has not been a significant increase. Key forms of participation, such as voting and party membership have declined significantly over time, but other newer, faster forms have arisen and are slowly becoming more popular to the newer generations such as Referendums, particularly in Scotland.

Popular engagement with the formal processes and institutions of democracy has been in long – term decline since the 1960’s. The turnout in 2001 was the lowest; this is compared to how between 1945 and 1992 it was always about 75 percent. Through this, it can be seen that recently, judging from the most blatant way to assess political contribution, it has greatly declined and some may say that due to the large extent of this decline, it is indeed a crisis. Furthermore, not just overall turnout, but turnout amongst young adults at general elections shows evidence of having decreased. For example, in the 2010 general election, only 44 percent of 18 to 24 year old voted, compared to 76 percent of 65 year olds. Older voters might participate in elections more because it is the form of participation that their generation is most used to, and which they value the most. However, if the current younger generations grow up continuing to be reluctant to vote, then, given enough time, our turnout levels could reach dangerously low figures. This shows that a reduction in participation of a specific age group, as well as overall, is a cause for concern and sequentially many would say that due to the smallness of these voting figures compared to 100 percent of the whole enfranchised population, the UK suffers from a participation crisis to a rather large extent as people are simply choosing not to get involved in voting, but it is not only the participation in general elections but there has also been a fall and local and European elections held since 1997.

Conversely, some more direct means of formal participation, such as the e-petition process, have proven popular with the public, The low participation does not mean that they don’t care about political issues, it could just be a reflection of the fact that people are choosing to participate in alternative ways Similarly, the country has now had reasonably low turnout for many years and yet, broadly speaking, governments have still been able to enact their policies and run the country without a crisis.
Generally, more people are losing interest and experiencing Political Apathy which causes citizens to not be moved from politics, losing their loyalty to party membership, this may be because they feel that this particular party is not putting some of the individual’s contributions into consideration which may discourage people to therefore support them and lose interest in voting. – Memberships of political parties continue to drop as people become less involved in formal politics In 2010, only 1.0% of the electorate was a member of the Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat parties. Where the Labour Party had over a million members in the 1950s, by 2010 it had approximately 193,000. Similarly, the Conservative Party had almost 3 million members in the 1950s, compared to around 130,000 to 150,000 in 2010. A similar idea is known as the Partisan Dealignment which means fewer people are “strongly attached” to a political party and the emotional bond of loyalty between voter and his/her party has decreased, implying that the electorate is becoming more volatile in its voting behaviour. In contrast, the participation of thousands of people in the huge number of pressure groups across the country suggests this simply isn’t true. People aren’t too busy to march against pension cuts, or against the Iraq War, or to protest the closing of local libraries and facilities so therefore they are not ‘too busy to vote’, they must be choosing not to vote for other reasons.
Power within our political parties has become so centralised that there is little incentive to join a political party or to campaign or vote for one in national elections. Therefore, many choose either not to get involved in politics or to expend their energy in other avenues such as pressure groups. Party leaders dominate the process through which candidates are selected to campaign in general elections. It is difficult for outsiders to get the nomination compared to other countries like America and Party leaders dominate the policy making process. Ordinary party members used to have a much stronger say during the annual party conventions but increasingly the key decisions have already been made prior to these events. It is arguable; that perhaps the different approaches to increasing political participation are not effective, however in contrary, referendums was a new approach and was successful. The most controversial and significant referendums have attracted stronger turnout, and further referendums continued to be requested by many members of the public; The Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement referendum in 1998 had both high turnout (81%) and a decisive victory for the ‘yes’ campaign approving the agreement (71%). This gave far greater weight to the agreement, which confirmed the status of Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom and laid plans for the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. The 2014 referendum on Scottish independence had turnout of 84.5%, reaching 90% in some areas, and even included 16 and 17 year old voters for the first time.

Participation crisis can be widely affected by the level of trust of politicians, which are currently at record lows. Scandals such as the 2009 exposure of MPs expenses have significantly damaged levels of trust in politicians. In 2009, a poll showed that only 13% of the public trusted politicians to tell the truth. This lack of trust could be seen to contribute to the perceived ‘crisis’ in participation in the UK as, without belief that politicians are acting in the best interest of the public, many are likely to refrain from participating. However, this factor does not affect citizens trying to influence politicians, if anything; lack of trust may have inspired some people to become more involved in pressure groups as a means to influence politicians that they no longer take at their word. In the first year since the e-petitions process began, there were over 36,000 petitions created which attracted over 6.4 million signatures.

To conclude, political participation is essential, not simply because it is the beating heart of a healthy democracy, but because it is directly related to the effectiveness of government and is chosen making sure that all citizens have been entitled to a contribution. Low levels of participation seem to be associated with ineffective governments. Though some forms of participation in Britain are increasing, others are declining. The problem, however, is that the forms which are declining, like electoral voting and party activism, are central to democracy and the effectiveness of government. The forms that are increasing, such as consumer participation, are not central, although important and therefore do not improve the situation. In this sense, there is a crisis of democracy and participation in Britain today.