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Phd in POLITICS UNIVERSITY of SHEFFIELD the PERSONAL PhD IN POLITICS UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD THE PERSONAL SIDE OF POLITICS: A STUDY OF BASIC HUMAN VALUES IN THE UK PARLIAMENT JAMES WEINBERG FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS AUGUST 2018 ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis examines the personalities of national politicians and is the first of its kind to apply the socio-psychological model of Basic Human Values (Schwartz, 1994) to Members of the UK Parliament. In doing so this thesis departs from the dominant traditions of Historical Institutionalism and, more recently, interpretivism in UK parliamentary studies. Interdisciplinary insights and methods from political psychology are combined to examine a number of important questions and findings relevant to wider pools of literature on anti- politics, political behaviour and representation. Specifically, I investigate 'who' enters elite politics, 'how' they behave in elected office, and 'why' public perceptions of politicians' psychological characteristics might be inaccurate. To answer these questions, I collect and analyse original survey data on the basic values, ideologies, attitudes and demographics of a sample of 106 Members of Parliament (MPs). These surveys are supported by in-depth semi- structured interviews. Firstly, these data are analysed alongside comparative data on the public from the 7th round of the European Social Survey to reveal a process of psychological self-selection to elite politics in the UK. In demonstrating that certain citizens with particular value profiles are more likely to enter elected office, these results make an original contribution to prior research into political ambition and recruitment. Secondly, I build a theoretically-driven model of parliamentary behaviour and test it empirically to show that MPs' basic values impact significantly upon legislative behaviours as diverse as voting, asking written questions, and signing Early Day Motions. Thirdly, the results of a conjoint experiment with a large sample of the British public are presented to assess the relative importance of various attitudinal and demographic variables, alongside basic values, for voters’ ideal-type politicians. Compared with self-report data on UK MPs, this conjoint experiment reveals a 'perception gap' whereby citizens get MPs with the psychological characteristics they desire but do not perceive this congruence. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first specific mention must go to my family for their empathy and, in particular, their ability to listen to my banal diatribes on any given day about new ideas or contestations. I must thank my mother for providing me with a healthy dose of realism; my father for reminding me that we work to live and not vice versa; my sister for offering timely distractions; and my grandparents for their unwavering belief in my ability to 'get the job done'. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my supervisors, Professor Matthew Flinders and Dr Todd Hartman. Matt has been an incredible patron to me over the last 3 years, opening doors and opportunities where there seemingly were none. He also taught me the importance of looking beyond the academic bubble and working with the public interest in mind. In other words, he has restored my faith in the ability of academics to 'make a difference'. Todd has given me his time, attention and expertise with unwavering selflessness. I complete this project in full knowledge that he has provided me with the skills needed to match my ambition. Wherever I go next, I will continue to count Matt and Todd as dear colleagues and friends. I have been extremely lucky to enter a number of collegiate 'families' in the last few years and this has made the lonely moments of completing a PhD much more bearable. To all my colleagues at the Sir Bernard Crick Centre, past and present (Kate Dommett, Marc Geddes, Matt Wood, Alex Meakin, Brenton Prosser, Holly Ryan, Leanne Cotter, Pat Seyd), I would like to say thank you for your friendship and your time. In particular I say a special thanks to Indra Mangule, who has shared an office with me for 3 years without despairing at my terrible sense of humour. I would like to thank all of the friends and colleagues I have made through the Political Studies Association, whether that be on the early career network committee, the team in head office, trustees past and present, or members of the political psychology specialist group. Likewise I reiterate my appreciation to members of the PACE peer review group for inviting me to join your meetings and to share my latest work. Your feedback has been invaluable in developing both the ideas in this thesis and future publications coming out of it. I also extend a sincere thanks to all of the friends and colleagues I made in Australia during my visiting scholarship at the University of Sydney in 2017. This thanks goes, in particular, to John Keane for his inspirational approach to good scholarship, public engagement, and hearty intellectual discussion; to Simon Tormey for giving me so much of his time and wisdom during the APSA conference in Melbourne; and to Keshia Jacotine for her ongoing friendship. In a similar vein I would like to thank Martin Rosema for teaching me the true meaning of getting the most out of a conference, and for inviting me to participate in the 2018 Politicologenetmaal at Leiden University. Lastly, I want to express sincere appreciation to all 106 Members of Parliament who agreed to participate in this research project. Your dedication to democracy, whatever your personal opinions, has been truly admirable and reassuring to observe. CONTENTS Executive Summary p.1 Section 1: Context and Theory Chapter 1 - Rethinking Parliamentary Studies p.7 I. Paradigms in Parliamentary Studies: The Rise and Fall of the p.9 Westminster Model and Historical Institutionalism II. Sociological Studies: From Searing to Rhodes p.14 III. Political Psychology and the ‘Value of Values’ p.26 Chapter 2 - Basic Human Values p.34 I. The Psychological Study of Political Elites p.35 II. The Theory of Basic Human Values p.39 III. Demographics and Life Circumstances p.45 IV. Operationalising Basic Human Values for Behavioural Explanation p.50 V. Personal and Political Values p.55 Section 2: Building an Interdisciplinary Research Agenda Chapter 3 - Who Rules? A Deconstruction of the Political Class p.59 (RQ1) I. ‘Only in it for themselves!’ – Towards a Model for Candidate Entry and p.60 Evaluation II. The Professionalisation of Politics Versus Professional Politicians p.67 III. ‘They’re all the same!’ – Issues of Socio-Demographic Homogeneity p.70 Chapter 4 - An Integrated Model of Parliamentary Political p.74 Behaviour (RQ2) I. Scoping the Limitations and Character of Institutional Choice p.75 II. Toeing the Party Line p.81 III. Incorporation of Ideology p.87 IV. Hypotheses for Parliamentary Behaviour p.91 Chapter 5 - Personality and Anti-Politics: Re-Examining the State of p.98 Representation (RQ3) I. The Human Process of Representative Democracy p.99 II. The Gap, the Trap, and the Prominence of Personality p.104 III. The Personalisation of Politics p.109 Section 3: Research Design Chapter 6 – Methods p.118 I. Data Collection p.120 II. Capturing Basic Human Values using the Portrait Values p.125 Questionnaire III. Interviews p.132 IV. Outline of Data Analysis p.137 V. Conjoint Survey and Analysis p.143 Section 4: Results and Analysis Chapter 7 - The Basic Human Values of UK Members of Parliament p.147 I. Psychological Scrutiny: Who are our Representatives? p.148 II. Dark Intentions? A Focus on Power Values p.153 III. The Role of Basic Values in Parliamentary Recruitment p.159 IV. Professional Politicians and Claims of Careerism p.167 Chapter 8 - Psychological scrutiny of UK Representatives in an Age p.171 of Anti-Politics I. At the Intersections: Descriptive Representation of Multiple Publics p.172 a) Age p.173 b) Gender p.175 c) Education p.181 II. Basic Values and Partisanship p.185 a) Elite Comparisons p.185 b) Leaders and Followers p.189 c) Non-Voters p.194 Chapter 9 - Personal Choices, Political Behaviours p.200 I. 'Ayes to the Right': Basic Values and Voting Behaviour in the House of p.201 Commons. II. Moderate Constraint: Explaining Early Day Motions (EDMs), Written p.215 Questions and Select Committee Membership. III. Representing 'What' or 'Whom'? Basic Values and MPs' p.223 Representative Priorities. Chapter 10 - In Search of the 'Perfect' Politician p.232 I. Basic Values and Political Preferences p.232 II. Leadership Emergence p.242 III. Conjoint Analysis of Candidate Preferences by Sub-Groups p.246 Section 5: Discussion Chapter 11: The Personal Side of Politics: Implications, Limitations p.255 and Next Steps I. Self-Selection and Democratic Elitism? p.256 II. Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Gender p.260 III. Preferable Descriptive Representatives: Partisanship p.263 IV. Agency Matters p.266 V. Personality and Democracy p.270 VI. Limitations p.272 Reference List p.277 Appendices p.325 LIST OF TABLES Table Number Caption Page No. 1.1 Parson's (2007) matrix of dominant logics of 12 explanation in political science. 1.2 Traditions in the analysis of parliamentary roles 18 (Source: Blomgren and Rozenberg, 2012). 1.3 Combining logics of explanation (adapted from 29 Parsons, 2007). 2.1 An overview of the ten motivational types in the 40 theory of Basic Human Values, including their value markers, content and related theoretical literature (see Schwartz 1992, pp.4-12). 4.1 Overview of paradigms in parliamentary studies. 77 6.1 Hypotheses organised by research question. 119 6.2 Descriptive data comparing a sample of 106 UK MPs 125 with the composition of the House of Commons (April 2017), and a sample of the general population gathered by the 7th round of the European Social Survey (Figures rounded to the nearest whole number).
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