Putting Voters in Their Place Geography and Elections in Great Britain

by Johnston, Ron; Pattie, Charles

• ISBN13: 9780199268054
• ISBN10: 0199268053
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-12-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Why do people living in different areas vote in different ways? Why does this change over time? How do people talk about politics with friends and neighbours, and with what effect? Does the geography of well-being influence the geography of party support? Do parties try to talk to all votersat election time, or are they interested only in the views of a small number of voters living in a small number of seats? Is electoral participation in decline, and how does the geography of the vote affect this? How can a party win a majority of seats in Parliament without a majority of votes inthe country? Putting Voters in their Place explores these questions by placing the analyusis of electoral behaviour into its geographical context. Using information from the latest elections, including the 2005 General Election, the authors show how both voters and parties are affected by, and seekto influence, both national and local forces. Trends are set in the context of the latest research and scholarship on electoral behaviour. The book also reports on new research findings.

Author Biography

Ron Johnston is Professor of Geography at the University of Bristol. One of the best known human geographers in the world, he has published many books and papers on political geography, urban geography and the history and philosophy of human geography, including Geography and Geographers (6th edition, with J Sidaway) and From Votes to Seats: The Operation of the UK Electoral System since 1945 (with C. Pattie, D. Dorling and D. Rossiter).
Charles Pattie is Professor of Geography at the University of Sheffield. He has published widely on electoral geography, the politics of devolution, and on political participation. He is author of From Votes to Seats: The Operation of the Uk Electoral System since 1945 (with C. Pattie, D. Dorling and D. Rossiter) and Citizenship in Britain (with P Seyd and P Whiteley).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xi
List of Tables	xiii
List of Abbreviations	xix
Models of Voting	1	(39)
Sociological Models	4	(7)
Responsive Voter Models	11	(8)
From `Normal' to Responsive Voters	19	(7)
To Vote or Not to Vote	26	(4)
The Contemporary Pattern of Voting	30	(9)
Conclusions	39	(1)
Bringing Geography In	40	(23)
Context and Scale	43	(3)
Bringing Context In	46	(16)
Conclusions	62	(1)
The Geography of Voting: Regions, Places, and Neighbourhoods	63	(43)
The Problem of Data	63	(5)
The Aggregate Pattern: Variations by Constituency	68	(5)
Combining Constituency and Survey Data	73	(9)
A North--South Divide in Voting Patterns in the 1980s?	82	(8)
Moving Down a Scale---or Two	90	(14)
Conclusions	104	(2)
Talking Together and Voting Together	106	(38)
Talking Together and Voting Together?	106	(2)
Measuring the Conversation Effect Directly	108	(3)
Who Talks Politics?	111	(16)
The Impact of Political Conversation	127	(12)
Political Conversation and Attitude Change	139	(4)
Conclusions	143	(1)
The Local Economy and the Local Voter	144	(43)
It's the Economy, Stupid: Economic Voting	144	(3)
Measuring the Economic Vote: Which Economy?	147	(5)
Economic Evaluations and the Economic Vote	152	(3)
Government Responsibility and the Economic Vote	155	(9)
Endogenous Economic Voting?	164	(6)
Economic Geography and Economic Voting	170	(7)
Local Economic Geographies and Perceptions of Economic Performance	177	(4)
Local Economic Evaluations and Electoral Geography	181	(3)
How Local is Local?	184	(1)
Conclusions	185	(2)
Party Campaigns and their Impact	187	(40)
The National Campaign	188	(9)
The Constituency Campaign	197	(2)
Measuring Constituency Campaigning	199	(3)
The Impact of the Local Campaign	202	(2)
The Local Campaign: Locally or Nationally Controlled?	204	(8)
Constituency Campaigning and the Individual Voter	212	(5)
Who Benefits from Constituency Campaigning: Incumbents or Challengers?	217	(8)
Conclusions	225	(2)
To Vote or Not to Vote: The Problem of Turnout	227	(39)
Trends in Turnout over Time: the Growing Problem of Falling Turnout?	229	(9)
Who Votes?	238	(8)
Turnout and Local Context	246	(8)
Minimizing Participation Costs? Turnout and Distance to Polling Station	254	(5)
Personal Turnout and the Actions of Others	259	(3)
Summarizing the Contextual Effect on Turnout	262	(2)
Conclusions	264	(2)
Votes into Seats	266	(38)
Accounting for Disproportionality	270	(3)
Not only Disproportional but also Biased	273	(2)
The Making of a Geography: Constituency Definition in the UK	275	(4)
Geography, Disproportionality, and Bias	279	(6)
Bias Decomposition and the Geography of the Vote	285	(17)
Conclusions	302	(2)
Appendix: The British Election Study	304	(3)
References	307	(28)
Index	335