IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v44y2012i5p1165-1184.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Spending, Contacting, and Voting: The 2010 British General Election in the Constituencies

Author

Listed:
  • Ron Johnston

    (School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, England)

  • Charles Pattie

    (Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, England)

  • David Cutts

    (Institute of Social Change, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, England)

  • Justin Fisher

    (Magna Carta Institute, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, England)

Abstract

A substantial body of recent research has uncovered the impact of constituency campaigns on British general election outcomes, using the published returns of candidates' spending as a proxy measure for their campaigns' intensity—the more spent, the greater the intensity of the local campaign, and the greater the intensity of campaigning, the better their performance in the constituency, and the poorer their opponents' performance. These data refer only to the last few weeks before the election, however, and cannot identify how spending affects behaviour. For the latter, it is argued that spending is a proxy measure for the amount of contact between candidates and voters; the greater the amount spent the greater the probability that an elector contacted will vote for the relevant party. It has been difficult to evaluate this argument until the 2010 general election, however, for which the availability of a large panel survey that includes information on those contacts allows a full assessment of the hypothesis. The results show that the more spent in a constituency the greater the volume and range of contacts there, which in turn increases the probability of individuals voting for the party concerned.

Suggested Citation

  • Ron Johnston & Charles Pattie & David Cutts & Justin Fisher, 2012. "Spending, Contacting, and Voting: The 2010 British General Election in the Constituencies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(5), pages 1165-1184, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:44:y:2012:i:5:p:1165-1184
    DOI: 10.1068/a44382
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a44382
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a44382?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sanders, David & Clarke, Harold D. & Stewart, Marianne C. & Whiteley, Paul, 2007. "Does Mode Matter For Modeling Political Choice? Evidence From the 2005 British Election Study," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 257-285, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baumberg, Ben, 2016. "Benefit `myths'? The accuracy and inaccuracy of public beliefs about the benefits system," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103512, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Hannan, Kellie & Cullen, Francis T. & Butler, Leah C. & Graham, Amanda & Burton, Alexander L. & Burton, Velmer S. Jr., 2020. "Racial Sympathy and Support for Capital Punishment: A Case Study in Concept Transfer," SocArXiv xybj9, Center for Open Science.
    3. Tucker, Luc, 2013. "Parliamentary Questions and the Probability of Re-election in the UK House of Commons," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1023, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    4. Andersson-Hudson, Jessica & Knight, William & Humphrey, Mathew & O’Hara, Sarah, 2016. "Exploring support for shale gas extraction in the United Kingdom," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 582-589.
    5. Sofia Vasilopoulou & Markus Wagner, 2017. "Fear, anger and enthusiasm about the European Union: Effects of emotional reactions on public preferences towards European integration," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 382-405, September.
    6. Lenandlar Singh, 2011. "Accuracy of Web Survey Data: The State Of Research on Factual Questions in Surveys," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 3(2), pages 48-56.
    7. Rinscheid, Adrian & Wüstenhagen, Rolf, 2018. "Divesting, Fast and Slow: Affective and Cognitive Drivers of Fading Voter Support for a Nuclear Phase-Out," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 51-61.
    8. Tucker, Luc, 2013. "Parliamentary Questions and the Probability of Reelection in the UK House of Commons," Economic Research Papers 270436, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    9. John Iceland & Eric Silver & Kerby Goff, 2023. "Moral intuitions and vaccine hesitancy during the COVID‐19 pandemic," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(3), pages 230-247, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:44:y:2012:i:5:p:1165-1184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.