This module introduces students to the study of elections and voting behaviour. It uses post-war British elections and referendums as the focal point for introducing key political science debates about voting and party competition and as a context for analysing political change in Britain. The module combines discussion of theoretical debates about voting behaviour and electoral competition with a topic-based overview of key trends in the British electoral landscape over the past eight seven decades.
The module will also equip students with a working knowledge of some of the key statistical data sources, software packages and techniques used by political scientists to study UK elections and referendums.an understanding of key data sources and methods used in the study of elections, with a focus on quantitative approaches to studying voting behaviour and electoral change