The Political Consequences of Franchise Extension: Evidence from the Second Reform Act

Abstract

Abstract. We use evidence from the Second Reform Act, introduced in the United Kingdom in 1867, to analyze the impact on electoral outcomes of extending the vote to the unskilled urban population. Exploiting the sharp change in the electorate caused by franchise extension, we separate the effect of reform from that of underlying constituency level traits correlated with the voting population. Although we find that the franchise affected electoral competition and candidate selection, there is no evidence relating Liberal electoral support to changes in the franchise rules. Our results are robust to various sources of endogeneity. 4 From a political science perspective, however, a critical element of the link between franchise extension and policy outcomes is missing. In particular we know little about the political mechanism that relates changes in the franchise to the growth of government. In principle, policy changes caused by franchise extension could arise due to several 4 At the same time the link between franchise reform and fiscal policy appears not to be direct: show a non-monotonic relationship between franchise extension and the probability of adopting income tax; Lindert (1994), assesses the impact of variation in electoral rules across countries and finds little evidence that social spending increased before 1920; Scheve and Stasavage (2008) show tax rates were flat during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, rising sharply as countries mobilized for war; and Aidt and Jensen (2009) and Husted and Kenny (1997) show that institutional tax raising capacity is an important conditioning variable.

Franchise Extension and the British Aristocracy

“…One possibility that we do not look at is whether the type of bills proposed on the floor and voting on those bills changes as a direct consequence of the reforms. However, Berlinski and Dewan () show that voting on bills considered either side of the passing of the Second Reform Act in parliament was unaffected by its passage. A related hypothesis is that the areas where franchise extension had the largest effects were more likely to see their representatives, whether aristocratic or not, enter the cabinet and so increase their influence.…”

Enfranchisement, Malapportionment, and Institutional Change in Great Britain, 1832–1868

“…I treat Ballot Stance as linear in some specifications and categorical in others. %Δ Electors is the difference in the number of registered electors in the district at the 1865 and 1868 elections expressed as a percentage of the district's 1865 electorate. (Source: Berlinski and Dewan ; Craig ) Boundary Change is a dummy variable that is coded 1 for districts that had their boundaries redrawn in the redistribution . (Source: Berlinski and Dewan ; Craig ) Δ M is the change in the district magnitude between 1868 and 1865.…”

“…(Source: Berlinski and Dewan ; Craig ) Boundary Change is a dummy variable that is coded 1 for districts that had their boundaries redrawn in the redistribution . (Source: Berlinski and Dewan ; Craig ) Δ M is the change in the district magnitude between 1868 and 1865. For example, a district that lost one seat in the redistribution is coded −1, a district that gained a seat is coded +1.…”

“…The first House elected on the new franchise and new distribution of seats then passed the Ballot Act of 1872, which mandated the use of the secret ballot at parliamentary and municipal elections in the United Kingdom. Yet Berlinski and Dewan () show that the franchise extension of 1867 had little electoral impact in the short run. If the general effect of the Second Reform Act was to bring into the electorate a large bloc of relatively poor, urban voters who tended to favor the Liberals over the Conservatives (and the Liberals won a large majority at the 1868 election), it was nevertheless the case that Liberal support in a district was largely independent of how many voters had been added to the district's electorate.…”

“…Indeed, one unambiguous effect of the Second Reform Act was to increase the level of electoral competition, i.e., more candidates contested elections and many fewer districts went uncontested (Berlinski and Dewan ).…”