Supervisor: Dr Resul Umit | Durham University.
Project background
My research project aims to assess the policy outcomes of votes at 16, specifically responsiveness i.e. do political parties cater their policy platforms to the new younger electorate, in devolved elections in Scotland and Wales. This will hopefully contribute to both the wider UK policy debate around votes at 16, as well as assess the effectivness of the outcome and impact generated by votes at 16 from an academic context, beyond the current literature surrounding policy process i.e. how votes at 16 affects electoral turnout and long term voting habits.
My interest in this project was driven by a strong interest beyond purely the effects on political participation, but examining the long term systematic impact on the party political system and by extension the influence afforded to this new young electorate.
My research study will be a cross national, longitudinal and prodominately qualative study of the policy outcomes of votes at 16, since being introduced in devolved elections in Scotland in 2015 and Wales in 2020. This will utilise Lexical Prevalence analysis of the major Scottish and Welsh political parties manifestos since 1998, comparing not only the prevelance of youth policy mentions, but also how framing of such policy issues have changed over time since the introduction of votes at 16.
With the current Labour government proposing to introduce votes at 16 for national parliamentary elections from 2029 onwards, there will undoubtedly be further significant change to the political landscape. The outcomes of the introduction of votes at 16 are unknown, in terms of how political parties cater to an expanded electorate.
As such by studying how party platforms have shifted in Scottish and Welsh devolved elections, since votes at 16. The research findings can serve both to feed into the policy debate around effectiveness, as a valuable insight into how the political landscape on a national level could change.
Research question
How has the implementation of votes at 16, affected political policy platforms in Welsh and Scottish devolved elections? Do political parties effectively cater to the younger electorate? And how do key policy areas shift?
Research objectives
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Examine if party platforms in Scottish and Welsh devolved elections have catered increasingly to an expanded younger electorate post introduction of votes at 16?
- Analyse party platforms I.e. manifestoes over time to determine if and how key policy have shifted over time in response to votes at 16 and on a left - right dynamic.
- Carry out analysis to see if there is any similarities in party political platforms between Scotland and Wales post votes at 16.
Methodology
I will conduct this study by first conducting a comprehensive literature review into the debate around votes at 16 in the UK, rational choice theory in relation to voter behaviour specifically in relation how political parties cater to the electorate and literature on group appeals and framing analysis.
Then I will collect all the manifesto documents from 1998 -2026 for 4 or 5 major Scottish and Welsh political parties. Before defining a word dictionary of terms that refers to young people/youth and youth policy and through carrying out an lexical analysis and keyword-sentence analysis, count the number of sentences that contain relevant keywords against the total sentences in each manifesto to get a measure of prioritisation of youth policy.
In addition I’ll categorise how youth policy content has shifted over time in key policy areas and how different political parties on a left-right political axis promote and/or view youth policy differently.
Finally from this data, I will compare cross nationally between Scotland and Wales, to identify any similar trends in policy in response to the implementation of votes at 16.