How to win a landslide by really trying: the effects of local campaigning on voting in the 1997 British general election

Abstract

There is a continuing debate among political scientists and commentators about the relevance of local party campaigns in influencing the vote in British general elections. We review that debate in the case of the 1997 British general election, and then go on to specify and estimate models of the influence of local campaigning on the constituency vote share for Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives in that election. In contrast to the Michigan studies, which have tended to emphasise long-term partisan and policy-related predispositions, the results of our analysis show that local campaigning, measured from surveys of local party members together with proxy variables based on constituency spending data, had a very important influence on the vote. The effects appear to be strongest for the Liberal Democrats, important for New Labour, and rather weak for the Conservatives. The findings are relevant for both debates about campaign effects in Britain and debates about the electoral–professional party model. The results imply that the image of the electoral–professional party as a well-organised ‘army’ that obeys commands from the centre is misleading when applied to understanding party election campaigns.