Matt Ryan Gerry Stoker Peter John Alice Moseley Oliver James Liz Richardson and Matia Vannoni What does local heaven look like Increased equal political participation ID: 561552
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Slide1
Remaking heaven in small-scale democracy: A randomised experiment to encourage contested elections and greater representativeness in English local councils
Matt Ryan,
Gerry
Stoker,
Peter
John,
Alice
Moseley,
Oliver
James,
Liz
Richardson,
and
Matia
VannoniSlide2
What does local heaven look like?Increased (equal) political participation
We have seen plenty of experiments around enhancing main forms political participation…
Voting
Standing for office?
Communicating with a representative
Joining a movement/campaignSlide3
Parish council
Rural Britain
– green and pleasant
it
can be cloudy like heaven
Small communities (lowest tier of government for roughly 30% of the population of England) 9,500 parish councils and 95,000 councillors.70,000 inhabitants to less than 200 residents. 80% of parish councils govern areas of less than 2,500 inhabitantsCouncillors are disproportionately old (only 8% under forty and just over 1% under thirty) and disproportionately white males (29% women and 4% black and minority ethnicities). *last census 2006Rarely hold contested elections = legitimacy problem.Slide4
What do we know about recruitment?
In the majority of cases a stimulus (communication) is needed to recruit a person to stand for office (
Mcleod
et al 1999).
Recruiters tend to look first to relatively closed networks, and value people with the same characteristics that they themselves possess (Crowder-Meyer 2011, Brady et al. 1995; 1999).
Logical to want confidence that the recruit will do a good job…close personal connection or often a family connection (Van Lieffringe, 2012)May also recruit from within any number of networks of ‘purpose’ where they can recognise that members have a shared identity (Lim 2008)…weak and seemingly innocuous relationships e.g. a friend of the family (Della Porta and Diani 2005)Slide5
…continued…
Time-scarce…use crude heuristics – as proxy assume that education, income and labour-market position are related to political interest (
Stromblad
2008).
For recruit personal incentives key
Will I win? Will I make a difference? Can I gain access/reward/status?Costs - Time to campaign/stand and do the job (Norris and Lovenduski 1994), being in the public eye (Lawless 2012)Slide6
Facilitating intervention?
Literature suggests
interventions need to be centred on clear understandings of the fears and ambitions of potential recruits and practically enable capacity and confidence-building through training or reassurance mechanisms.Slide7
May 7 Group: Hampshire, Northants, Suffolk, Surrey and Leics
/RutlandSlide8
Sample977 parishes
818 clerks
5 counties of Southern England
51% (498) parishes received treatment letter &
briefing paper
49% (479) parishes received control letter & no briefing paperSlide9
Research design in a nutshell
Pilot in 2013-2014 to find out best practice > treatment for 2015
Randomization of 818 clerks to take account of shared parishes
Sept 2014: Control got a general letter about recruitment
Sept 2014: Treatment got a letter & briefing paper from researchers with inclusion of research findings + invited to training sessions with Stoker and John
Nov 2014: training takes place (two crossovers)Measurement of taking the treatment by a survey and crosschecking websitesOutcomes measures by contested elections and seats, and survey measures investigating the extent of activity to recruit candidatesSlide10Slide11
Findings …Almost nothing
Something happening with encouragement to use social media.
Why? – some ancillary research information helps us understand…Slide12
Role is time consuming (65%)
Lack of knowledge of parish councillor role (44%%)
Perception that parish councils have limited power to make a difference (44%)
341
responses
f
rom 977 parishes
(35% response rate)Slide13
Forcible
Enhanced powers
Quotas
Other (downstream)
affirmative action
Compensation Targeted mobilisation Training Nudging Information Facilitative
Enhancing
representation