牛牛资源

This year’s election is said to be the hardest one to call since the Second World War. In this short video, Dr Will Davies, joint director of the Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) at 牛牛资源, explains why such unpredictable forces have been unleashed.

鈥淭he first thing to say about this year鈥檚 election is that it鈥檚 said to be the hardest one to call since the Second World War. This is quite a challenge for social scientists, political theorists, and political scientists most of all because they like to believe they know what鈥檚 going to happen next.

"A lot of social theory and political theory and economic theory is based on the idea that the future is predictable and knowable, and that various visions of 鈥� whether it be history, or models of risk or theories about political changed 鈥� can be used in order to know where things are going, to know what鈥檚 going to happen next. 

鈥淭his election challenges all of that. It forces us to recognise that politics and democracy are fundamentally unstable, unknowable entities, and in a way it鈥檚 very healthy, I think, in politics that we don鈥檛 actually have a clue what鈥檚 going to happen.

鈥淓ven after 2008, which was the great crisis of financial capitalism of recent decades, British politics still felt relatively predictable. I think now we鈥檙e finally seeing the impact of that economic crisis on our political situation and it鈥檚 unleashing all sorts of unpredictable forces which we simply can鈥檛 model or reasonably predict in any rational or statistical way.鈥�