Social Context and Electoral Behavior in Britain

Abstract

It has long been thought that voting behavior is shaped not only by voters' own class and family background, but by the social context in which they live. Whereas almost all previous empirical studies of social context have found it highly significant, most notably in the substantial literature on contextual influences in Britain, the authors argue for a contrary view. Reanalyzing the classic British case, applying multivariate techniques to 1966 individual-level data matched to the 1966 census, and also to 1979 individual level data matched to the 1981 census, the authors show that once a suitable range of individual factors have been taken into account, social context has no significant effect on the vote in Britain.