Why the Tories were Trounced

Kellner, Peter

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.pa.a028759

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…The British Conservatives were notoriously divided over the EU in the 1990s (Cowley & Norton, 1999). Although this was a minor factor in their landslide 1997 loss to New Labour (Kellner, 1997), it was crucial for their response.…”

Section: Comparative Political Studies 44(4)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Cutting Issues and Party Strategy in the European Union

Parsons

Weber

2011

Comparative Political Studies

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Has European integration affected national electoral politics beyond the margins? Experts describe its main impact as empowerment of radical voices. Mainstream parties avoid European Union (EU) issues that divide their left-or right-based organizations; extreme parties attack the EU and the center’s silence. But EU issues also generate important dynamics inside mainstream parties. The authors theorize cross-cutting EU issues as an example of a general model of cross-issue interference. Two mechanisms of interference alter party strategizing. When electoral victories have strengthened leaders, cross-cutting issues produce muffling of more recently emerged issues. Divided parties cling to left—right issues and suppress fights over integration. But interference also runs the other way. When leadership is weak, muffling fails and challengers aggravate dissent. Internal fights on newer (EU) issues affect the selection of leadership on older (left—right) issues, generating displacement from electorally competitive positions. The authors document these mechanisms and their generality with mixed methods: pan-European panel analysis and interview-based accounts.

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Section: Comparative Political Studies 44(4)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-Cutting Issues and Party Strategy in the European Union

Parsons

Weber

2011

Comparative Political Studies

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“…The Conservative government's reputation for economic management was very severely dented by the financial crisis of September 1992 and the UK's precipitate withdrawal from the EU's Exchange Rate Mechanism. Its reputation more generally was eroded by accusations of 'sleaze' against individual Ministers, MPs and party workers (Kellner, 1997;Ridley and Doig, 1995;Sanders, 1999) and by the intra-party split over closer relationships with the European Union, including the proposed single European currency. Labour, meanwhile, especially after Tony Blair's 1994 election as party leader, sought to make itself electable again, not only in terms of its policies but also through establishing its credibility as a 'government in waiting'.…”

Section: The 1997 Uk General Electionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dimensions of Retrospective Voting

Johnston¹,

Pattie²

2001

Party Politics

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Studies of retrospective voting in Great Britain largely focus on economic issues, and pay little attention to whether electors associate economic changes (both positive and negative) with government policy. This paper analyses voters' retrospective evaluations of nine separate policy areas (over three main policy domains) in 1997, showing that the more negative evaluations of government policy over the previous five years the less the likelihood of an elector voting for the incumbent party -especially if in addition the main opposition party is viewed favourably. This provides strong support for the reward-punish model. KEY WORDS .1997 general election. Britain. economy. public services. retrospective votingWith the increasing dealignment of the British electorate and the decline in importance of traditional social cleavages in accounting for variations in voting behaviour there, analysts have turned to alternative models. (On dealignment and the 'death' of the class cleavage, see Sanders (1997) andEvans (1999a).) Initially, analysts were attracted to models with a focus on issue voting, but this has been eclipsed by a concentration on rewardpunishment models according to which voters reward governments for positive policy outcomes and punish them for negative ones. ('Reward a governing party with your vote when satisfied, punish it by voting for the opposition when dissatisfied') (Norpoth, 1992: 57). These models -alternatively known as responsive-voter models -originate in classic texts by Schumpeter and Key. Schumpeter's (1942) seminal contribution equated

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“…However, once in power, Labour achieved a decisive lead over the Conservatives, which was not challenged until the global financial crisis. Other analyses of BES data also demonstrate that at each of the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections, Labour's reputation for economic credibility was far superior to that of the Tories (Gavin and Sanders 1997; Kellner 1997; Sanders et al. 2001; Whiteley et al.…”

Section: Re‐evaluating Blairmentioning

confidence: 99%

Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders: The Case of New Labour and Tony Blair

Buller¹,

James²

2011

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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This article makes the case for employing the statecraft approach (associated with the late Jim Bulpitt) to assess political leadership in Britain. Rather than 'importing' methodologies from the US, as some scholars have done, statecraft is preferred in the UK context for two main reasons. First, statecraft is concerned with the motives and behaviour of leadership cliques, and as a result, it is more appropriate for the collective leadership style that is a characteristic of parliamentary systems such as that in Britain. Second, statecraft goes some way towards incorporating a sense of structural context into our evaluation of leadership performance. This need to take into account the broader institutional constraints facing chief executives is something that an increasing number of academics in this area have been calling for. The utility of the approach is illustrated through a case study of the Blair administration.

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Why the Tories were Trounced

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Cross-Cutting Issues and Party Strategy in the European Union

Cross-Cutting Issues and Party Strategy in the European Union

Dimensions of Retrospective Voting

Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders: The Case of New Labour and Tony Blair

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