Scottish Election Study, 2011

  The 2011 Scottish Parliament elections took place against a very different backdrop from the previous Holyrood elections. The SNP had governed as a minority since 2007, a Coalition Government in London had been in power since May 2010 and the economic context worsened significantly during the previous parliament. If attribution of responsibility was blurred in past elections, the 2011 election was likely to see it obscured to an even greater degree. The Scottish Election Study, 2011 (SES) was specifically designed to explore the manner and extent to which the Scottish electorate is able to punish/reward the Scottish governing party or Westminster governing parties within the context of the still developing multilevel governance arrangements. Addressing a related issue, the SES contained a path-breaking experiment designed to assess Scottish 'multilevel' party identification. Additionally, the debates on Scotland's contested constitutional status were assessed using the questions used in 2007 and in many previous studies but also included more nuanced questions, especially taking account of recent debates on Scotland's constitutional status. Finally, the SES contained modules designed to assess voter reactions to the ballot problems associated with the 2007 elections and voter understanding of and voting behaviour in the same-day Alternative Vote referendum. The 2011 SES continued a landmark series of election studies that provides solid value for money using an internet panel (including respondents from the 2007 study). To benefit the academic and practitioner communities, the data were released online through the <a href="http://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/research/cers/scottishelectionstudy2011/" title="Scottish Election Study 2011">SES 2011</a> website within months of collection. <br>
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Further information about the project can also be found on the ESRC's <a href="http://www.researchcatalogue.esrc.ac.uk/grants/RES-000-22-4539/read" title="Scottish Election Study 2011">Scottish Election Study 2011</a> award webpage.<br>
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