The 1964 General Election: Explaining Voting Behaviour Then and Now

Abstract

Current electoral analysis exemplified by authors such as Clarke et al. in Political Choice in Britain (2004) explains voting behaviour in terms rather different from those derived from the pioneering work of Butler and Stokes' Political Change in Britain, first published in 1969. While acknowledging that short-term and ephemeral factors may have some impact on party choice—perceptions of the party leaders and party images helped Labour slightly in 1964—they lent particular emphasis to the long-term ramifications of social class. From the 1970s, however, electoral analysts began to play down the explanatory power of ‘social determinism’. More contentiously, Clarke et al. suggest that the significance of social class may also have been overstated by Butler and Stokes. Conversely, valence politics—ironically a term introduced by Butler and Stokes and relating to voter perceptions as to the relative competence of the parties on issues upon which there is widespread agreement—has not only become a more significant tool but may also have greater explanatory power than previously acknowledged when applied to elections at least as far back as that of 1964. In comparing constituency data for 1964 with those for 2001, this article thus finds certain broad similarities. Notwithstanding differences in aggregate turnout, in the main parties' share of the vote and a sharp decline in party identification, the kinds of constituency that had relatively low turnouts in 2001 also had low turnouts in 1964; and the social factors associated with variations in party support in 2001 were associated in much the same way in 1964.