Ahead of the next General Election, the Qualitative Election Study of Britain (QESB) will be led by UWE Bristol academics. The QESB is the first and only qualitative longitudinal study to investigate political attitudes and voting behaviour over multiple elections and referendums in Britain.
The study enables research participants the opportunity to express and justify their decisions in their own words, often revealing the rich and complex tapestry of motives, influences, and determinants that cannot be captured through the set responses offered by traditional polling approaches.
The project team now led by Dr Thom Oliver comprises, Dr Kristi Winters (GESIS, Germany) and Dr Edzia Carvalho (University of Dundee) and has delivered qualitative datasets and analysis across the domains of political leadership, partisanship and voting behaviour and political opinion across UK General Elections in 2010, 2015, 2017 and 2019, as well as from the Scottish Independence and European Union membership referendum votes of 2014 and 2016.
Their most recent data publication ‘The Qualitative Election Study of Britain (QESB) Party Leader Evaluation Database 2010 – 2019‘ contains 4,119 words and phrases that evaluate British political party leaders, captured during focus groups and interviews with research participants from England, Scotland and Wales and has already proved of great interest to political scientists, historians and linguists.
Dr Thom Oliver who joined the Politics and International Relations team as a Senior Lecturer in January 2023 was recently awarded a Vice Chancellors Early Career Development Award (VCECR) for the period 2023-2025 to support the study. Thom joins fellow Politics and International Relations colleagues Dr Suwita Hani Randhawa (VCECR for her work on the Criminalisation of Ecocide) and Dr Henrique Taveres Furtado (VC Accelerator Award) in securing research funding.
“I am delighted to take on the leadership of the Qualitative Election Study of Britain and bring it here to UWE Bristol. Leading the study as it approaches it’s 15th year is really exciting. I am looking forward to working with Edzia and Kristi, to get out and speak to voters around the country, in person and online during what will be a fascinating general election. The study since its inception has delivered data which has been used by historians, linguists and political scientists so it is brilliant to be able to contribute to its continuing contemporary and historic legacy as a research project”.
Dr Thom Oliver, Senior Lecturer in Politics
Find out more: The Qualitative Election Study of Britain | The world’s first longitudinal qualitative election study (qesb.info)