Owen Winter – Page 3 – Data analysis, quantitative social science, electoral systems

Coronavirus, Individualism and Social Solidarity

This was originally posted as an article for the Social Review: Coronavirus, Individualism and Social Solidarity After a brief hiatus, politics is back in full flow. Normal disputes have replaced the relative unity of the first weeks of lockdown. But we can be sure that post-pandemic politics will not look the same as the politics […]

July 31, 2020
Thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism

My undergraduate thesis: Moving the Goalposts: Orbán’s Fidesz, Strategies of Party Competition and Electoral Authoritarianism

April 16, 2020
Proportional Representation: a Catalyst for Sustainable Policies?

My contribution to the Young Fabians Environment Network pamphlet ‘Ways to Save the World’ the full pamphlet can be found here. Until recently, interest in electoral reform was reserved for political anoraks. Around election time, some party activists grumbled about the unfairness of the system, but there were few serious attempts to change it. In […]

April 3, 2020
Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business

New evidence shows that it’s the Right that tend to benefit from the UK’s unequal electoral system. The Left is gradually embracing Proportional Representation, but it needs to move faster. This was originally posted as an article for OpenDemocracy: Peterloo led eventually to electoral democracy – but there’s one big bit of unfinished business Today marks […]

August 16, 2019
Peterloo 200: the path to Proportional Representation

16 August 2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre. To commemorate the massacre, I have been working on a report for Make Votes Matter, co-authored with the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform. From the Peterloo Massacre in 1819, through the Chartist and suffrage campaigns, to the rise of the Labour Party, working people have […]

August 15, 2019
New York Times – U.K. Voters’ Frustration High as 99% Are Sidelined in Prime Minister Election

My quote from this piece in the New York Times, about the Conservative leadership contest and dissatisfaction with politics. Most galling for many is that the decision lies with the Tories, whose party members are determined to have Brexit delivered by Oct. 31 at any cost. That view has been rejected by the majority of […]

July 21, 2019
Debate: will a PR model provide the desired political system?

My quote, originally published in Economia, the member publication for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales: Owen Winter Co-founder, Make Votes Matter “Millions feel unrepresented because first past the post (FPTP) distorts how people vote. In 2017 the DUP and Conservatives won a majority of seats with just 43% of the vote. […]

June 4, 2019
What if UK European Elections were held under the 1994 FPTP system?

The European Elections are the only nationwide UK elections held under a form of Proportional Representation. Admittedly, due to the D’Hondt counting system and small regions, the system isn’t perfectly proportional, but it is a vast improvement on the previous FPTP system, used until 1999. The last European Election to be held under First Past […]

May 31, 2019
Tactical voting on the basis of the 2014 European Elections

Disclaimer: I am a Labour Party member and will be voting for Labour in May’s European Elections. This blog is not intended to encourage tactical voting but to explore from an academic perspective whether various parties’ claims to be “the main Remain party” in the upcoming European Elections stand up to scrutiny. One of the biggest […]

April 23, 2019
The Impact of Electoral Systems on Economic Democracy in Developed Democracies

This essay was written for the quantitative methods component of my comparative politics module. A PDF of the essay is available here, R code is available here, and replication data is available here. With the challenges of climate change, globalisation and a backlash against established political and economic institutions, many political commentators have pointed to […]

March 21, 2019