IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/trapol/v35y2014icp275-285.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mixed-methods analysis of political parties׳ manifesto discourse on rail transport policy: Westminster, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

Author

Listed:
  • Chaney, Paul

Abstract

This study addresses a key lacuna by exploring the role of electoral politics in shaping public policy on rail transport in (quasi-)federal systems of governance. Attention centres on issue-salience and policy framing in party manifestos in state-wide and regional elections. The findings reveal a significant rise in issue-salience in parties׳ Westminster election programmes; with right- and left-of-centre parties increasingly advocating mixed economy approaches to rail transport as part of the wider rise of ‘valence politics’. The analysis also reveals how devolution may lead to the territorialisation of rail transport policy. In contrast to parties׳ Westminster programmes, regional manifesto discourse evidences a general rejection of neo-liberalism and stronger support for state control and/or not-for-profit rail operators. Overall, the findings underline the formative nexus between political representation and public policy – and show how, in the wake of state decentralisation, policy framing is contingent on ‘regional’ socio-economic factors and party politics, including state-building by civic nationalist parties.

Suggested Citation

  • Chaney, Paul, 2014. "Mixed-methods analysis of political parties׳ manifesto discourse on rail transport policy: Westminster, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 275-285.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:35:y:2014:i:c:p:275-285
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X14001231
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tranpol.2014.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Royed, Terry J., 1996. "Testing the Mandate Model in Britain and the United States: Evidence from the Reagan and Thatcher Eras," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 45-80, January.
    2. Stephen Senn & Dipti Amin & Rosemary A. Bailey & Sheila M. Bird & Barbara Bogacka & Peter Colman & Andrew Garrett & Andrew Grieve & Peter Lachmann, 2007. "Statistical issues in first‐in‐man studies," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 170(3), pages 517-579, July.
    3. Graham Haughton & Dave Counsell & Geoff Vigar, 2008. "Sustainable Development in Post-devolution UK and Ireland," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(9), pages 1223-1236.
    4. RePass, David E., 1929. "Issue Salience and Party Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(2), pages 389-400, June.
    5. Else, Peter, 1996. "Subsidy requirements in a restructured rail network : With particular reference to British Rail," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 13-15.
    6. Tim Strangleman, 2002. "Nostalgia for Nationalisation - the Politics of Privatisation," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 7(1), pages 92-105, March.
    7. Andrew Gamble, 0. "The Constitutional Revolution in the United Kingdom," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 19-35.
    8. John Stittle, 2004. "Accounting for UK rail freight track charges: privatisation, politics and the pursuit of private sector vested interests," Accounting Forum, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 403-425, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Chaney, 2015. "“Post-Feminist†Era of Social Investment and Territorial Welfare? Exploring the Issue Salience and Policy Framing of Child Care in U.K. Elections 1983-2011," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(1), pages 21582440155, February.
    2. Robert Wapshott & Oliver Mallett, 2018. "Small and medium-sized enterprise policy: Designed to fail?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(4), pages 750-772, June.
    3. Tassilo Herrschel, 2013. "Competitiveness AND Sustainability: Can ‘Smart City Regionalism’ Square the Circle?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2332-2348, August.
    4. Josep Colomer & Humberto Llavador, 2012. "An agenda-setting model of electoral competition," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 73-93, March.
    5. Arianna Degan, 2003. "A Dynamic Model of Voting," PIER Working Paper Archive 04-015, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 May 2004.
    6. Mikael Elinder & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2008. "Selfish and Prospective: Theory and Evidence of Pocketbook Voting," CESifo Working Paper Series 2489, CESifo.
    7. Álvarez-SanJaime, Óscar & Cantos-Sanchez, Pedro & Moner-Colonques, Rafael & Sempere-Monerris, Jose J., 2016. "Rail access charges and internal competition in high speed trains," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 184-195.
    8. Chaney, Paul, 2015. "Exploring political parties’ manifesto discourse on tourism: Analysis of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1998–2011," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 113-127.
    9. Durevall, Dick & Henrekson, Magnus, 2011. "The futile quest for a grand explanation of long-run government expenditure," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 708-722, August.
    10. Petia Kostadinova & Magda Giurcanu, 2018. "Capturing the legislative priorities of transnational Europarties and the European Commission: A pledge approach," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 363-379, June.
    11. Stephen Ansolabehere & M. Socorro Puy, 2015. "Issue-salience, Issue-divisiveness and Voting Decisions," Working Papers 2015-01, Universidad de Málaga, Department of Economic Theory, Málaga Economic Theory Research Center.
    12. Andreas Schedler, 1998. "The Normative Force of Electoral Promises," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 191-214, April.
    13. Matthieß, Theres, 2020. "Retrospective pledge voting: A comparative study of the electoral consequences of government parties’ pledge fulfilment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(4), pages 774-796.
    14. André Blais & Pierre Martin & Richard Nadeau, 1998. "Can People Explain Their Own Vote? Introspective Questions as Indicators of Salience in the 1995 Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 32(4), pages 355-366, November.
    15. Josiah, Jairos & Burton, Bruce & Gallhofer, Sonja & Haslam, Jim, 2010. "Accounting for privatisation in Africa? Reflections from a critical interdisciplinary perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 374-389.
    16. Werner, Annika & Giebler, Heiko, 2019. "Do Populists Represent? Theoretical Considerations on How Populist Parties (Might) Enact their Representative Function," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 55(4), pages 379-392.
    17. Constanze Binder, 2014. "Preferences and Similarity between Alternatives," Rationality, Markets and Morals, Frankfurt School Verlag, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, vol. 5(88), November.
    18. Jane Broadbent & James Guthrie, 2008. "Public sector to public services: 20 years of “contextual” accounting research," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(2), pages 129-169, February.
    19. Mourtgos, Scott M. & Adams, Ian T., 2019. "The rhetoric of de-policing: Evaluating open-ended survey responses from police officers with machine learning-based structural topic modeling," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-1.
    20. Zeev Ben-Sira, 1977. "A facet theoretical approach to voting behavior," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 167-188, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:35:y:2014:i:c:p:275-285. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30473/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.