PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE and PERSONALITY Competing and Complementary Characterizations of the 2001 British General Election

PARTY POLITICS VOL 9. No.3 pp. 317–345

PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY Competing and Complementary Characterizations of the 2001 British General Election

John Bartle

ABSTRACT

The study of voting behaviour is characterized by controversy about the ‘importance’ of various explanatory themes and specific variables, but there is a widespread reluctance to assess these hypotheses in a compre- hensive causal model. This article specifies a model of Labour and Conservative voting in the 2001 British General Election which incor- porates a whole series of competing and complementary hypotheses. The results suggest that partisanship, prospective evaluations of competence and favourable evaluations of Tony Blair all contributed to Labour’s victory, while retrospective evaluations of Labour’s record on crime and asylum-seekers reduced the size of Labour’s victory. Analyses that incorporate a new measure of party identification suggest that long- term partisanship may have contributed less and short-term factors correspondingly more to the aggregate election outcome.

KEY WORDS causal modelling evaluations of party leaders party identiﬁcation prospective voting retrospective voting

Introduction

In the wake of every general election, political commentators and party poli- ticians alike rush to offer ‘instant’ interpretations of the outcome on the basis of the impressions that they formed during the long or short campaigns. The 2001 general election was no exception. Some regarded the election as reﬂecting a long-term shift in partisan advantage from a once hegemonic Conservative Party to an ascendant Labour Party. Butler and Kavanagh (2001: 259) for example suggested that the election reﬂected ‘the

1354-0688(200305)9:3;317–345;032205 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) creation of a new electoral landscape’ and others that Tony Blair had made ‘a reality of Harold Wilson’s claim that Labour is the “natural party of government”’ .1 Labour ministers claimed that the outcome was a vindi- cation of Labour’s record in office and a mandate for investment in and reform of the public services (Butler and Kavanagh, 2001: 254). Distraught Tory backbenchers on the other hand attributed the outcome to the Tory party’s failure to reposition itself in the centre of British politics and project an attractive ‘new’ image. Still others blamed the unattractiveness of the Tory leader; a view that was partly supported by William Hague himself, who attributed the Tories’ defeat – at least in part – to a personal failure to persuade people that he was the ‘alternative Prime Minister’ (Bartle, 2002: 191). Political scientists offer their own interpretations of election outcomes too. These characterizations, however, are based on detailed analysis of survey evidence and are produced less quickly than the ‘instant’ assessments of political campaigners themselves. This delay may explain the tendency of ‘electoral myths’ to become deeply established among party strategists and decision-makers. As Mark Twain might have it, ‘Electoral myth can be halfway across the planet before the political scientist’s truth gets its boots on’. Yet even though political scientists have a great deal of time to arrive at their conclusions they still frequently disagree as to factors that influence vote decisions and account for aggregate election outcomes. These disagreements often take the form of fundamental disagreements about the nature of the voting act itself that are almost ‘definitional in nature’ (Shanks, 1994). Some view the vote as the expression of a fundamental political identity (Butler and Stokes, 1974; Campbell et al., 1960), whilst others view it as the product of a rational calculation, often – but not inevitably – for personal benefit (Downs, 1957). Yet even when there is basic agreement there is continued disagreement about the importance of specific variables. Some see the vote as the product of long-term experiences and accordingly emphasize the importance of partisan identities or ideological positions (Butler and Stokes, 1974; Crewe and Sarlvik, 1983; Heath et al., 1985). Others focus on the strategic decisions made by the parties during each parliament and examine the effect of evaluations of governmental performance and the policy packages offered to the electorate (Bartle, 2002). Still others think that elections are the result of impressions formed much ‘nearer’ the election itself and accordingly examine the effect of the campaign itself (Norris et al., 1999). Although political scientists often disagree about which factors have influenced voting behaviour there is a widespread reluctance to resolve these differences simply by estimating the relative importance of variables on individual vote decisions. There is an even greater reluctance to go on and ask the subsidiary question ‘why did X win and why did Y lose?’ Those who work in the subfield of voting behaviour of course are less surprised by their failure to account for election outcomes. They are well aware that any 318 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY attempt to explain individual vote decisions must be based on a whole series of problematic assumptions (Bartle, 1998: 502–4). Nevertheless, political scientists cannot decline to answer difficult questions merely because they are difficult. For one thing, the funding bodies that provide generous support for research in voting behaviour expect political scientists to provide explanations of both individual vote decisions and aggregate election outcomes. There are also sound methodological reasons for asking ‘large’ questions of the relevant survey data too. The process of construct- ing a model and testing this model against the data can add to the steady accumulation of theories about the electorate. Moreover, pushing those models and their associated data to their logical conclusions can force precision in terms of argument, help clarify the issues at stake and focus attention on the most fundamental issues where the theoretical payoff is greatest (Fiorina, 1975: 136–9). Though all inferences must be expressed with a degree of uncertainty there can be no compelling reason for failing to ask fundamental questions (King et al., 1994: 31). In this article I use BES data to provide answers to assess (1) why any given individual votes Labour rather than Tory and (2) why Labour won and the Conservatives lost. In a later section I briefly review those factors that scholars and commentators have suggested influenced the outcome of the 2001 general election. Before I proceed any further, however, it is necessary to review those factors that have been thought to influence voting behaviour: both in general and in the specific circumstances of the 2001 general election. In a later section I examine the plausibility of these competing and complementary hypotheses in the 2001 general election.

Partisanship Most conventional explanations of individual vote decisions and aggregate election outcomes have appealed to some notion, however vague, of ‘partisanship’ (Butler and Stokes, 1974; Bridge et al., 1976; Crewe et al., 1977; Crewe and Sarlvik, 1983; Heath et al., 1985, 1991). Political scientists have long recognized that many people do not ‘decide’ how to cast their vote anew at each specific election and instead may develop an enduring loyalty to a political party that extends over considerable periods of time. Partisanship helps to account for both the stability of individual political attitudes and the predictability of aggregate election outcomes. In its original formulation, associated with researchers at the University of Michigan, partisanship is held to represent an enduring emotional attachment to a political party that is quite distinct from current political preference (Campbell et al., 1960). This identity is influenced by long-term processes of political socialization in the home, at school and in the work- place. Once formed, it structures a wide range of attitudes, opinions and evaluations. Identifiers discuss politics with like-minded individuals and so their basic political beliefs are continually reinforced and become resistant 319 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) to short-term forces. Only gradual social change brought about by social mobility, migration or a marriage can alter voters’ characterizations of themselves as ‘Conservative’ or as ‘Labour’. Short-term factors (such as the policy packages offered by the parties, the state of the economy and the personalities of the party leaders) may influence vote decisions, but do not – on the whole – alter the voter’s basic self-characterization as a supporter of one particular party. Thus, once the factors that had persuaded them to ‘defect’ have disappeared, voters return ‘home’. In addition, there are often considerable barriers to issue voting, since ‘the influence of party identification on perceptions of political objects is so great that only rarely will an individual develop a set of attitude forces that conflicts with this allegiance’ (Campbell et al., 1960: 141). Although the Michigan interpretation of partisanship in terms of an enduring identity has long dominated the literature, ‘revisionists’ have offered strikingly differing interpretations of partisanship. These draw upon the work of Anthony Downs by assuming that voters are motivated by instrumental considerations. Downs (1957: 85) interpreted partisanship as ‘rational habit’ which, although it provides electors with a ‘standing decision’, can be revised if there are good reasons for believing that a party no longer acts in voters’ interests. Following this general line of argument, Fiorina (1981) asserted that while partisanship is in part the product of long-term political socialization, it also responds fairly quickly to cumula- tive political experiences. The influence of childhood socialization is quickly discounted and, in the long run, party identification can be simply conceived as a running tally of retrospective evaluations (see also Achen, 1992). The controversy between the Michigan and Revisionist schools of thought turns on the speed with which voters’ identities respond to political experience. Those working within the Michigan tradition do not deny that basic party allegiances respond to political experiences in the long run. They simply assert that the voters’ self-characterizations as being ‘Conservative’, ‘Labour’ or ‘Liberal Democrat’ do not generally respond to political experience in the short run between pairs of elections (Miller and Shanks, 1996). For such scholars, evidence that reported ‘party identification’ does respond to such experience over the short run raises suspicions about the validity of the survey items that purport to measure identification. In particular, it has been argued that, once allowance is made for ‘measurement error’, party identification is overwhelmingly stable at the individual level (Green and Palmquist, 1990, 1994; cf. Bishop et al., 1994). However, as Fiorina (1981: 190) has conceded, the controversy also turns on fundamental issues of definition, such as whether ‘one feels comfortable with rational choice or social- psychological notions’. These theoretical issues have been echoed in the British context (Bartle, 1999, 2001; Clarke et al., 1997; Sanders et al., 2002). Yet in Britain the debate has been considerably complicated by the apparent inability of British electors to distinguish between enduring partisanship and current 320 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY political preference. In the United States, electors who switched vote between pairs of elections consciously retained their prior partisanship and returned ‘home’ once the political forces that gave rise to their defection had disappeared. In Britain, however, the dominant pattern was for party identification and vote to switch in tandem. Butler and Stokes (1974: 43–4) attributed this difference to the larger number of elections that took place in America, which required voters to form a generalized predisposition towards a party. Voters’ self-reports of their political histories left them in no doubt, however, that ‘millions of British electors remain anchored to one of the parties for very long periods of time’ (Butler and Stokes, 1974: 47). Research into British voting behaviour ever since has exhibited a dualistic character: virtually everyone subscribes to a modified version of the party identification model but there is little or no confidence in the measure. More recent research has suggested that the difference between American and British electors may be the result of crucial differences either in the order in which the questions about vote and party identification are asked and/or the wording of the party identification question. Heath and Pierce (1992) suggest that the tendency of party identification and vote to move in tandem may result from the fact that British surveys ask about vote inten- tion before party identification. This reverses the order in American studies and is inappropriate since it produces a tendency to rationalize and bring reported identity into line with reported vote. Bartle (1999) argues that subtle differences between question wordings may also account for this difference. The American (NES) question reads, ‘Generally speaking, do you usually think of yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent or what?’, while the BES question reads, ‘Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or what?’ The BES question appears to have some ‘face validity’; the phrase ‘think of yourself as’ appears to refer to a self-identity, while ‘generally speaking’ should evoke longer-term considerations in the mind of the respondent. Crucially, however, it does not offer respondents the option of being ‘independent’ (or its functional equivalent) and, in effect, requires respondents to find their own way of responding to the question ‘or what?’ These differences of question wording may explain the observed tendency of party identification and vote to move in tandem.2 It may simply be that those electors who are really consistent ‘non-identifiers’ feel driven to express an identification that they do not really possess because they cannot think of how to respond to the question. This tendency is strengthened by the fact that the question about vote precedes that about party identification. It may well be that when these ‘false identifiers’ switch vote, they may bring their reported vote ‘into line’ with their (previously reported) behaviour and thus it appears that vote and party identification move in tandem (Johnston, 1999). For these reasons various analysts have experimented with different question wordings that would allow voters to distinguish between their enduring predisposition and current preference (Bartle, 1999, 2001; Sanders 321 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) et al., 2002). The 2001 BES asked all respondents, ‘Do you usually think of yourself as a supporter of any one particular party?’ Those who responded ‘no’ are counted as non-identifiers, while those who reply ‘yes’ are asked, ‘Which party is that?’ Respondents are then coded according to their unprompted responses. This, like the BES question, has some ‘face validity’. The phrase ‘Do you think of yourself’ appears to bring to mind a self-identity, while the word ‘usually’ should help the respondent to canvass ‘longer-term’ considerations. Moreover, since the question contains no explicit partisan clues this should also ensure that only those with a ‘genuine’ sense of partisanship respond ‘Yes’ to the first question. Preliminary experiments with a similar question reduced the estimated incidence of party identification among the British electorate and vastly increased the estimate of non-identification (Sanders et al., 2002: 201). To date, however, there is no multi-wave panel data of the sort that would permit analysts to compare the validity of the BES and new question. It is not therefore possible to examine whether the new question isolates a group of partisans who – although they temporarily defect to another party – return home to their ‘own party’. In the meantime, however, it is important to note that the chosen indicator of party identification may alter the estimated impact of other variables and the overall characterization of an election.

Contemporary Policy Conﬂicts

Although most analysts assume that enduring partisanship, however conceptualized and however measured, fundamentally structures vote decisions, they also recognize that voters are influenced by contemporary conflicts over the direction of policy. In the 2001 general election, for example, it was sometimes supposed in the media that attitudes towards tax and spending and the European single currency would influence the choice between the parties. This was particularly the case since the parties had adopted very different positions. Labour promised to increase spending on key public services – particularly the National Health Service (NHS) – and, although they re-stated their promise not to increase either the basic or top rates of tax, remained vague about whether other taxes, such as national insurance, would increase. The Tories on the other hand promised to match Labour’s expenditure on health and education and to cut taxes. In relation to the Euro, Labour advocated a policy of ‘wait and see’, while the Tories ruled out participation for the next two parliaments. From early 2001 William Hague and his colleagues sought to raise the salience of the European issue. Labour sought to minimize the issue by reiterating its commitment to a referendum prior to British entry. It might therefore be supposed that attitudes towards public spending and/or the single currency might influence voters. A Labour identifier, who was otherwise predisposed to support his or her party, but who was 322 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY opposed to ‘surrendering the pound’, might have paused before casting a ballot for Tony Blair’s New Labour. Similarly, a Tory Europhile might be subject to the conflicting pull of partisanship and policy preference. In either case, there are grounds for believing that differences between the parties on these issues may have influenced some voters.

Retrospective Evaluations

Analysts have long assumed that voters are influenced by their evaluations of how well or how badly the incumbents have performed in the previous parliament. It is usually assumed that governments are judged by their economic performance (low inflation, low unemployment and rising standards of living); indeed the phrase ‘It’s the economy stupid’ has been elevated to something of an eleventh commandment (Sanders et al., 1987). However, it has increasingly been accepted that – in the British context at least – governments have wider responsibilities and are also judged by their ability to manage the public services (King, 1998). Labour’s campaign in the 2001 general election was based in large part on the claim that fiscal prudence (controlling public expenditure) and monetary stability (granting the Bank of England operational control over interest rates) had produced a strong economy. They also claimed to have made small, but significant, improvements to the key public services, particularly the NHS and education, and that continued economic success would enable them to make radical improvements to the public services during a second term. The Conservatives, on the other hand, maintained that Labour had presided over increases in violent crime, been ‘soft’ on asylum-seekers, introduced ‘stealth taxes’ and given away power to Brussels. There were again good grounds, therefore, for believing that voters’ evaluations of Labour’s performance would influence the election.

Evaluations of Party Leaders

British elections often resemble a popularity contest between party leaders. Writing before the 2001 general election, Hugo Young claimed that: In modern [British] politics, nothing matters more than the leader. We have a parliamentary system but a presidential impulse. This takes a certain view about power, but a determining one about style. Think of the Tories and you get William Hague: bald, struggling, robotic, Yorkshire. Think of Labour, and there’s only one face in front of it and one mind behind. (Bartle and Crewe, 2002: 71) Political scientists have been more sceptical as to whether evaluations of the party leaders have much effect on voters (net of all prior variables) 323 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

(King, 2002). However, there are grounds for believing that such evaluations mattered more than usual in 2001, since the leaders were apparently so ill-matched. The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had acquired a reputation for competence during his four years in office. He had been a player on the world stage, gaining credit for his actions in Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Iraq. The Tory leader, William Hague, on the other hand, was thought to be young, inexperienced and too eager to please. The tabloid press in particular mocked his attempts to demonstrate that he was a ‘man of action’ (Bartle and Crewe, 2002: 70–4). Voters’ impressions of the leaders’ personalities, together with assessments of their ability to do the job of Prime Minister, are widely thought to influence the decisions of individual voters. A voter who identified with the Conservative Party, and who was otherwise predisposed to vote for it as a result, may have been put off by a perception that Hague was incapable of providing strong leadership. Similarly, a Labour identifier may have thought twice about voting for his or her party if they distrusted Blair.

Prospective Evaluations and Party Image

Although general elections are frequently supposed to be referendums on the government’s performance over the previous four years, it is widely accepted that elections are also, at least in part, a choice between alternative futures. While retrospective evaluations focus solely on the government (i.e. there is assumed to be no ‘what might have been’ calculated for the opposition) prospective evaluations are comparative in nature. This fundamental asymmetry must therefore be built into the vote models by determining how voters expect both parties to perform (Fiorina, 1981; Miller and Shanks, 1996). It is widely assumed that voters’ choices are heavily influenced by their evaluations of economic competence. The standard Gallup question on economic competence is widely thought to be an excellent predictor of political preference.3 Yet assessments of the parties’ abilities to deal with other problems, such as the public services, crime, asylum-seekers and transport, are also likely to influence voters. There is some evidence from the ‘rolling thunder’ component of the 2001 BES study that voters’ evaluations of the Tories’ ability to manage the public services may well have influenced voters.4 Unfortunately the pre-election survey, on which this article is based, contained just one question about prospective performance and that related to economic competence.5 It is therefore not possible to test other hypotheses that voters were influenced by their prospective evaluations of party competence in relation to public services, crime and asylum- seekers. Although the pre-election survey contains a limited number of questions about prospective performance, it does contain some questions relating to 324 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY the parties’ general images. To some extent these characteristics (‘in or out of touch’ and ‘united or divided’) may provide proxies for omitted prospective evaluations. A party that is ‘united’ and/or ‘in touch’ is more likely to solve the problems of the public services than one that is ‘divided’ and/or ‘out of touch’. These party image variables are therefore included in subsequent analyses; though where such variables are ‘significant’ it is unclear whether these impressions really influenced vote decisions or are proxies for other omitted variables.

Affective Evaluations of the Parties

It has finally been suggested that voters may be influenced by their affective evaluations of the parties (Miller and Shanks, 1982). These evaluations are the product of a whole series of impressions that are accumulated over long periods of time: ranging from early childhood and formative political experiences. However, unlike party identification, these feelings are also assumed to incorporate relatively recent experiences too.6 Simply liking one party rather than another may represent a ‘reason’ for voting for a party. This variable of course must be located very ‘near’ to the vote decision itself and may be thought to be perilously tautological. For this reason, relatively little causal importance is attached to it.

Data, Pre-Statistical and Statistical Assumptions

Data Used in the Models Most of the data used here come from the pre-election component of the 2001 British Election Study conducted by National Opinion Polls. Face-to- face interviewing took place between March and May, at least some six weeks before the announcement of the election on 2 May 2001. Evidence on the vote choice, however, comes from the post-election survey carried out between June and September 2001.7 Data relating to the explanatory variables were collected some time before the day of the election itself, and it is therefore not possible to examine the influence of those factors that were not in place at the time of the pre-election survey.8 Some voters, for example, who otherwise preferred Labour above all other parties may have finally decided to vote Liberal Democrat as a result of information gathered during the campaign (e.g. about the policies of either party or the tactical considerations in their constituency).9 However, using data gathered before – but not too long before – the vote decision itself, reduces the problem of ‘rationalization’, whereby voters bring their reported attitudes, opinions and evaluations into line with their vote decision. It is fairly safe to conclude, therefore, that the 325 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) independent variables genuinely represent ‘explanations’ of the vote rather than spurious associations. In all the following models I follow Miller and Shanks (1996) in scoring the dependent variable +1 if Labour and –1 if Conservative.10 All explanatory variables are scored from –1 to +1; where +1 represents the most ‘pro-Labour’ response, –1 the most ‘pro-Conservative’ response and 0 a hypothetical ‘neutral’ value.11 It goes without saying that the plausibility of the estimated apparent effects for each variable depends upon our ability to control for all theoretically relevant variables and that the omission of such variables raises the problem of ‘omitted variable bias’ (King et al., 1994: 168–82). The pre-election survey, for example, contains no questions relating to voters’ enduring ideological predispositions – other than self- reported positions on the left–right scale and their response to a statement about the relative importance of solving crime and protecting human rights. This suggests that the estimated effects of subsequent variables (together with those located in the same bloc) may be biased upwards. Similarly, the survey contains no questions that directly relate to the parties’ abilities to manage the public services; assessments that were thought to be of great importance during the campaign itself (Bartle, 2002). Omission of such variables will inflate estimates of the effect of prospective economic competence on both individual vote decisions and the aggregate election outcome.

Pre-Statistical Assumptions In the vote models, variables are grouped into blocs containing variables of a similar type or those that influence voting behaviour in similar ways. These blocs are then arranged in a sequence according to their stability and distance from the vote. Figure 1 displays the assumed causal order in the models. This causal model closely follows the assumptions set out in Miller and Shanks (1996) which are in turn based on the ‘funnel of causality’ first introduced by Campbell et al. (1960).12 Several considerations influence the assumed causal order. Most straightforwardly, stable variables are assumed to precede those in flux (Davis, 1985). All subsequent variables are rooted in enduring predispositions (party identification, left–right position and liberal–authoritarian positions). However, since there is controversy as to the most valid indicator of partisanship in this article I examine the effect of two different measures of party identification by running two sets of models. In addition, those variables with little or no direct partisan content are assumed to cause ‘partisan variables’; thus retrospective evaluations of personal financial experiences are assumed to precede evaluations of how the government influenced voters’ living standards. Retrospective evaluations are also assumed to precede prospective evaluations, which implies that respondents are assumed to use the past as a guide to the future. Finally, specific evaluations of the party leaders are assumed to precede more general evaluations of parties. Voters’ 326 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY

1. Predispositions: Party identiﬁcation and ideological positions

2. Contemporary factors: Contemporary policy conﬂicts and non-partisan evaluations of conditions

3. Retrospective evaluations of governmental performance

4. Evaluations of party leaders

5. Prospective evaluations of party competence and party image

6. Affective evaluations of parties

Vote

Figure 1. Assumed causal order among explanatory variables assessments of the trustworthiness of the leaders, for example, inﬂuence evaluations of the parties’ economic competence. Most of the assumptions about causal order can be challenged. Miller and Shanks (1996: 194) wisely caution that: Each of (the) ‘apparent effects’ represents a descriptive statistic for which we have deliberately accepted a somewhat conservative interpretation. For each coefﬁcient, our interpretation represents a clear suggestion – without decisive proof – that it should be regarded as an approximation of the overall extent to which differences between voters on that variable were in fact responsible for ‘producing’ differences between them in their vote. (Emphases added) In order to gauge the magnitude of the biases that might result from these (potentially false) assumptions about the causal order I engage in ‘sensitivity testing’ by comparing estimates produced from models based on differing sets of assumptions as to causal order.

Statistical Assumptions The statistical technique used in this article is ‘bloc-recursive’ and employs OLS models. The bloc-recursive nature of these models means that I control for those variables located in prior blocs, together with those located in the same bloc. This procedure produces rather ‘conservative’ estimates of the causal impact, since no account is taken of the effect that any particular ‘target’ variable may have on variables located within the same bloc (Miller and Shanks, 1996: 552–9). The OLS models used in this article, however, assume that the dependent variable is continuous and can take on any value from minus to positive 327 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) infinity. Previous research has suggested that OLS techniques are robust and will produce plausible estimates of the coefficients in a wide range of circumstances (Sanders and Brynin, 1995). However, where the vote can take one of only two values (as in the present case) it is generally felt that OLS techniques are inappropriate.13 The use of OLS models in these circumstances leads to problems of (1) ‘data admissibility’, since the predicted scores may exceed their ‘natural’ limits (–1 to +1), (2) unreliable standard errors and (3) ‘floor’ and ‘ceiling effects’ as a result of the non-linear nature of the relationships. In these circumstances it is suggested that logistic or probit regression techniques may be more appropriate (Aldrich and Nelson, 1984). While accepting the force of most of these arguments I use OLS techniques for the simple reason that the alternative methods do not enable one to provide a unique characterization of the election outcome. This is because the causal effect of a given variable on an individual vote decision depends on the value of other variables, and one must therefore calculate ‘average’ effects for some hypothetical individual with certain ‘typical’ characteristics.14 Mindful of these concerns, however, I run the same model twice using both methods and note those instances where a variable that is ‘significant’ in OLS is not significant in logistic regression. I leave it to other interested scholars to pursue the specific issue of how to provide overall characterizations of the election outcome using other statistical methods.

The 2001 General Election

The Distribution of Attitudes and Opinions The evidence displayed in Table 1 provides the ﬁrst clue that one’s overall characterization of the 2001 general election depends, to some extent, on the preferred indicator of partisanship. In the pre-election survey, all respondents were asked two questions about their partisan identity. Responses to the traditional BES question suggest that 42 percent of voters in the spring of 2001 ‘identiﬁed with’ Labour, 23.5 percent with the Conservatives and 8.3 percent with the Liberal Democrats; only 19.7 percent of voters declined any

Table 1. The incidence of party identification in 2001 Survey item Labour Con Lib Dem None BES1 42.0 23.5 8.3 19.7 NEW2 29.4 16.5 3.4 45.3 Difference (BES – New) –12.6 –7.0 –4.9 +25.6 1. ‘Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat (Nationalist) or what?’ 2. ‘Some people think of themselves as usually being a supporter of one political party rather than another. Do you usually think of yourself as a supporter of any one particular party? Which party is that?’ Source: British Election Study, not weighted. 328 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY party identity. Responses to the new question, however, suggest that a mere 29.4 percent ‘identified with’ Labour, 16.5 percent with the Conservatives and 3.4 percent with the Liberal Democrats, while 45.3 percent declined a party attachment. The traditional BES measure therefore suggests that, providing Labour could mobilize its own identifiers to turn out and vote, the 2001 general election was largely ‘in the bag’, unless short-term forces were so strong that they pulled – or pushed – voters away from their established loyalties. The new measure on the other hand suggests that, in principle, half the electorate were ‘up for grabs’ and that the election was wide open. Much previous research has attested to the importance of enduring conflicts (or ‘ideology’) in vote decisions (Bartle, 1998). Unfortunately, the pre-election wave of the BES contains few items that seek to establish voters’ positions on issues of enduring conflict and merely contains a question about the voters’ self-placement on a left–right scale. The ‘average voter’ in the spring of 2001 considered him/herself to be slightly to the left of centre (reflected in the mean score of +0.02). Tony Blair’s strategy of courting the centre ground appears, on this evidence to have been very wise. However, the tendency of voters to locate themselves towards the centre may, to some extent, reflect both ignorance about the meaning of ideological terms and the social desirability of ‘centrist’ positions (Converse and Pierce, 1993; cf. Fleury and Lewis-Beck, 1993). More straightforwardly, Table 2 suggests that most voters had authoritarian inclinations, largely agreeing with the proposition that ‘violent criminals deserve to be deprived of their human rights’ (mean score –0.51). Turning to issues of current controversy, the pre-election survey suggests that a substantial majority of voters supported increased public spending and increased taxation (mean score +0.30). Although this finding ties in with findings from Gallup, there are reasons to be wary of such evidence, since questions about tax and spending may prompt a ‘socially desirable’ response. Certainly, evidence from other sources suggests more ambivalence towards tax and spending. During the election campaign, for example,

Table 2. Attitudes towards enduring conﬂicts and policies in 2001 Variable Mean score Standard Deviation Left–right self-placement1 +0.02 0.41 Liberal–authoritarian position2 –0.51 0.53 Tax and spending3 +0.30 0.43 N = 3,219 1. ‘In politics, people sometimes talk of left and right. Using the scale from 0 to 10, where would you place yourself?’ 2. ‘Violent criminals deserve to be deprived of some of their human rights. Strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree.’ 3. ‘On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means government should cut taxes a lot and spend much less on health and social services, and 10 means government should raise taxes a lot and spend much more, where would you place yourself?’ 329 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

Rasmussen used a computer to read out questions and respondents were asked to type in a number on their telephone to indicate their response. The absence of a human interviewer was intended to reduce the social embar- rassment of expressing a selﬁsh preference for tax cuts. Intriguingly, responses to the Rasmussen question suggested that, at the same time that the majority of voters were telling both Gallup and the BES that they were prepared to pay higher taxes, 42 percent were telling Rasmussen that they preferred the status quo and wanted taxes and spending kept as they were; only 21 percent wished to increase taxes and spending. Fully 34 percent of respondents wished taxes and spending to be reduced (Bartle, 2002: 183). It remains to be seen, therefore, whether attitudes towards tax and spending inﬂuenced vote decisions in 2001. Continuing with an examination of attitudes towards contemporary controversy, Table 3 displays evidence of voters’ attitudes towards the single currency. Although opinion polls suggested that two-thirds of voters would have voted against the single currency in the spring of 2001, attitudes were rather more complicated than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response suggested. When respondents were given a range of options, 7 percent chose joining

Table 3. Attitudes towards the single currency in 2001 Percent Deﬁnitely join as soon as possible 7.1 Join if and when the conditions are right 35.7 Don’t know/other 8.9 Stay out for at least the next four or ﬁve years 20.7 Rule out on principle 27.6 N = 3,219 1. ‘Thinking of the Single European Currency, which of the following statements on this card would come closest to your own view?’

Table 4. Non-partisan economic evaluations in 2001 Response Retrospective Personal1 Retrospective General2 Lot better 5.2 3.3 Little better 21.7 31.1 Same 45.3 36.0 Little worse 19.9 23.8 Lot worse 7.9 5.8 N = 3,219 1. ‘How does the ﬁnancial situation of your household now compare with what it was 12 months ago? Has it got a lot worse, got a little worse, stayed the same, got a little better, got a lot better?’ 2. ‘How do you think the general economic situation in this country has changed over the last 12 months? Has it got a lot worse, got a little worse, stayed the same, got a little better, got a lot better?’ 330 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY

‘as soon as possible’, 36 percent chose ‘wait and see’, 21 percent wished to rule out participation ‘in the near future’ and 28 percent wished to rule out participation ‘in principle’. Opinion was thus evenly balanced between ‘pro’ (42.8 percent) and ‘anti’ Euro (48.3 percent) camps. The Tory campaign, which appeared to assume a great deal of hostility to the Euro, may therefore have misread public opinion. Turning to ‘non-partisan’ assessments of the economic situation, Table 4 suggests that narrow majorities believed their personal finances and national conditions had become worse in the previous 12 months. If voters had attributed these ‘bad times’ to Labour’s actions, then, other things being equal, voters should have been less likely to vote for the governing party. However, voters’ retrospective evaluations of the general economic situation were equally balanced (34.4 to 29.6 percent) and personal financial expec- tations for the ensuing 12 months were also slightly more positive than negative. This latter evidence boded well for Labour as it sought re-election. Table 5 suggests that evaluations of the Labour government’s performance were somewhat mixed. Voters rated Labour’s economic performance in relation to inflation, unemployment and the economy in general very highly and here the average score exceeded +0.20. They were evenly divided as to whether Labour had ‘made life better for individuals’ or whether they had done well on taxation, education and pensions. However, most people were deeply disappointed with Labour’s performance in relation to other public services such as the NHS and transport and on those issues the government’s score dipped below –0.10 in each case. Moreover, Labour’s record on asylum was rated very poor on the eve of the election.

Table 5. Retrospective evaluations of the government’s performance in 2001 Mean Standard Deviation Inﬂation +0.32 0.50 Economy generally +0.25 0.47 Unemployment +0.22 0.51 Education +0.07 0.51 Europe +0.04 0.46 Life better for me +0.01 0.54 Taxes –0.03 0.52 Pensions –0.06 0.55 Crime –0.12 0.54 NHS –0.15 0.58 Transport –0.25 0.53 Asylum –0.33 0.57 N = 3,216 ‘How do you think the present government has handled each of the following issues? Very well, fairly well, neither well nor badly, fairly badly, very badly?’ Source: British Election Study, not weighted. 331 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

Previous studies have suggested that a wide range of leadership traits may inﬂuence voting behaviour (King, 2002: 9). Yet while the BES pre-election study covered a wide range of retrospective evaluations of governmental performance it asked just two questions about the traits of the party leaders: whether they were ‘capable of being a strong leader’ and ‘kept promises’. At the outset, it is important to say that it is unclear whether a lengthier list of traits would have substantially altered either estimates of the effects of evaluations of the leaders on individual voters or the overall characterization of the election. For that reason alone the ﬁndings about the effect of leaders in 2001 should be regarded as highly provisional. Table 6 displays ratings of the party leaders. It clearly suggests that such evaluations were mixed. Tony Blair was widely felt to be capable of ‘strong leadership’ and scored +0.28 on this trait. By contrast, the relatively inexperienced William Hague was generally rated as not capable of strong leadership and scored –0.27. In relation to whether the leaders ‘kept promises’, however, the picture was more favourable to the Tories. More voters rated Blair as ‘untrustworthy’ than ‘trustworthy’, and he therefore scored –0.05. Hague was also rated untrustworthy and scored –0.14, but Blair’s poor rating meant that differences between the leaders on this trait were not so marked. It may be that New Labour’s emphasis on ‘spin’ and episodes such as the Millennium Dome eroded Blair’s reputation for honesty.

Table 6. Party and leadership images in 2001 Mean Standard Deviation Blair Keeps promises1 –0.05 0.87 Capable of strong government2 +0.28 0.90 Hague Keeps promises1 –0.14 0.70 Capable of strong government2 –0.27 0.87 Labour United/Divided3 +0.09 0.90 In touch/out of touch4 –0.03 0.91 Conservative United/Divided3 –0.27 0.85 In touch/out of touch4 –0.42 0.79 N = 3,216 1. ‘On the whole, would you describe [ ] as someone who “keeps his promises” or “breaks his promises”?’ 2. ‘On the whole, would you describe [ ] as “capable of being a strong leader” or “not capable of being a strong leader”?’ 3. ‘On the whole, would you describe the [ ] Party nowadays as “united” or “divided”?’ 4. ‘On the whole, would you describe the [ ] Party nowadays as “out of touch with ordinary people” or “in touch with ordinary people”?’ Source: British Election Study, not weighted. 332 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY

Evidence about general party images is also displayed in Table 6, suggest- ing that both parties were considered to be ‘out of touch’ in the spring of 2001, but Labour’s score of –0.03 suggests that they were far less out of touch than the Tories, who scored –0.42. This assessment may reflect the Tories’ ‘near-term’ emphasis on campaigning on issues of low salience, but may also reflect a deeper sense of alienation with the party too. Labour was seen to be slightly more ‘united’ than ‘divided’, scoring +0.09 compared to –0.27 for the Tories. However, Labour’s advantage here was considerably less than in 1997, when the election had been preceded by five years of civil war within the Tory Party (Bartle, 2002: 186).

Estimates of Individual and Aggregate Impact Having examined the distribution of opinion among the entire sample I now narrow my focus to examine those factors that inﬂuenced the decision to vote Labour or Conservative in June 2001. In this section I therefore examine a whole series of competing and complementary hypotheses about voting behaviour. The logic follows that set out by Miller and Shanks (1996). At each stage I introduce a series of variables of a similar type and delete those that do not achieve statistical signiﬁcance (at p<0.1).

Models Using the Traditional BES Measure of Party Identification The results in Table 7 set out the estimated effects of variables, controlling for the traditional BES measure of party identification. All the coefficients in this table are correctly signed and significant at p<0.1 when they are first introduced though some are not statistically significant in the final equation that includes all variables.15 The first column sets out the simple bivariate relationship between variables and the vote (scored +1 if Labour and –1 if Conservative). The bivariate relationship between party identification and vote for example is 0.90, while the apparent total effect (controlling only for liberal–authoritarian positions and left–right self-placement) is 0.88. Only a small proportion of the effect of party identification therefore appears to have been either ‘spurious’ or the result of other predispositions. In the case of other variables controlling for prior variables (together with those in the same bloc) substantially reduces the estimated effect. This is particularly striking in the case of variables that are assumed to be located ‘later’ in the causal order, such as retrospective evaluations of the government’s performance on taxation (where the coefficient is reduced from 0.76 to 0.11) and evaluations of the strength of party leaders (from 0.79 to 0.09). A considerable proportion of the relationship between these variables and vote is therefore the result of long-term partisanship. It should be noted that, according to this – and indeed all other models – voters’ attitudes towards public spending and taxation fail to distinguish 333 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

Table 7. The importance of explanatory themes Adjusted Aggregate Bivariate ATE Mean Mean Impact Predispositions BES Party identiﬁcation 0.90 0.88 +0.20 +0.20 +0.1760 Liberal–authoritarian position 0.26 0.06 –0.54 –0.54 –0.0324 Left–right self-placement 0.74 0.09 +0.02 +0.00 +0.0000 +0.1436 Current conditions General economy 0.69 0.12 +0.08 +0.08 +0.0096 Single currency 0.48 0.06 –0.11 –0.06 –0.0036 +0.0060 Retrospective evaluations of Labour Government Asylum 0.50 0.06 –0.35 –0.30 –0.0180 Crime 0.60 0.09 –0.11 –0.09 –0.0081 Europe 0.71 0.07 +0.08 +0.07 +0.0049 Taxation 0.76 0.11 +0.03 +0.01 +0.0011 –0.0201 Leader Image Keeps promises 1.01 0.11 +0.07 +0.00 +0.0000 Capable strong leadership 0.79 0.09 +0.33 +0.25 –0.0225 +0.0225 Party image In/out of touch 0.85 0.06 +0.25 +0.17 +0.0102 Economic competence 0.78 0.17 +0.23 +0.02 +0.0034 +0.0136 Like 1.37 0.30 +0.18 +0.03 +0.0090 Average vote +0.2573 Total explained +0.1746 Total unexplained +0.0827 between Labour and Conservative voters in 2001. The reason for this is unclear, but evidence from Gallup may provide some clues. In May 2001 Gallup asked voters, ‘The Conservatives say they can cut taxes by 8 billion pounds while keeping to the present Government’s plans for increased spending on the NHS and education. Do you or do you not believe that a Conservative government, by saving money elsewhere, could combine tax cuts and increased spending in this way?’ (Bartle, 2002: 183). Fully 68 percent of all voters and nearly one in three (32 percent) Conservatives doubted that this trick could be pulled off. The failure of tax and spending to inﬂuence voters may have owed much to the Conservatives’ lack of credi- bility and Labour’s vagueness on the tax issue. Attitudes towards the single currency, however, do differentiate between 334 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY

Labour and Tory voters in 2001.16 The strong bivariate relationship is greatly reduced (from 0.48 to 0.06) once controls are added for prior variables, but is still statistically significant. Retrospective evaluations of general economic conditions similarly distinguish voters, though evaluations of household conditions do not. On this evidence at least, voters appear to be influenced by their evaluations of how the country as a whole has fared rather than they themselves and their family. Evaluations of Labour’s performance appear to have distinguished between Labour and Tory voters in 2001. Somewhat surprisingly, retrospective evaluations of Labour’s economic performance were largely insignificant in the vote models (taxation being the slight exception). Equally surprisingly, evaluations of Labour’s performance in relation to the public services were insignificant as well. Only evaluations of Labour’s performance on asylum-seekers (0.06), crime (0.09), Europe (0.07) and taxation (0.11) distinguished Labour from Tory voters at the individual level. Retrospectively at least it was not a simple case of ‘It’s the economy stupid’, but nor was it a case of ‘It’s the economy and public services stupid’ either; at least in relation to the choice between Labour and the Tories (cf. Crewe, 2000). Evaluations of leadership traits discriminate between Labour and Conservative voters. The ATE estimates for ‘keeps promises’ (0.11) and ‘strong leadership’ (0.09) are both significant even after controls are added for predispositions, attitudes towards current controversies and retrospective evaluations of Labour’s performance in office. Evaluations of whether the parties were ‘in’ or ‘out of touch’ similarly discriminated between the parties’ voters in 2001 (an ATE of 0.06), though, as noted above, this may reflect the omission of other theoretically relevant variables. However, evaluations of party unity were statistically insignificant according to this and, indeed, all the other models. Voters had apparently acquired enough evidence of Labour divisions during the previous four years to make unity irrelevant as a basis of choice in 2001 (Bartle, 2002: 186). Assessments of prospective economic competence appear to exert a powerful influence on individual vote decisions (0.17), even after controls are applied for the BES indicator of party identification, evaluations of current conditions, retrospective evaluations, assessments of the parties and party leaders. Indeed, the ATE for economic competence is almost double that of any other party or leadership image variable. In a purely prospective sense, therefore, it appears that it was ‘the economy stupid’ that influenced individual voters in 2001. However, it is not clear whether these conclusions would have been altered had controls been added for other prospective evaluations. Finally, affective evaluations of the parties add powerfully to our ability to predict how any given individual will vote with an ATE of 0.30.17 Having assessed the importance of variables to individual votes I now assess the contribution of each variable to the aggregate outcome. In this 335 PARTY POLITICS 9(3) section, therefore, I combine information about the extent to which a variable visibly influenced individual voters (ATE) with additional information about the extent to which opinion was skewed in a ‘pro-Labour’ or ‘pro-Conservative’ direction (mean score for that variable) (Achen, 1982: 68–76). In the case of the three predispositions (party identification, liberal–authoritarian positions and left–right self-placement), the appropriate indicator of skewness is the raw mean score, since there are no prior variables that might have been responsible for the distribution of opinion on those variables. The aggregate impact of each predisposition can therefore be calculated by multiplying the ATE by the mean; thus party identification contributes [0.88 0.20 = +0.1760] to Labour’s victory; while liberal–authoritarian positions contribute [0.06 –0.54 = –0.0324] to Labour’s plurality and thus favoured the Tories. Though left–right self- placement distinguishes between voters at an individual level, it contributed nothing to Labour’s victory, since voters were evenly divided between left and right (as indicated by the mean of 0.00). In the case of variables located at subsequent stages in the causal order, the score needs to be adjusted to take into account that portion of the mean score that is attributable to prior variables. The mean score for such variables is therefore replaced with an ‘adjusted’ version of the mean in order to calculate the unique impact of each variable on the aggregate election outcome.18 The adjustments have a modest effect, but can alter assessments of a variable’s contribution to the aggregate outcome. In the case of evaluations as to whether the leaders keep their promises, for example, a pro- Labour advantage of +0.07 is revealed to represent no advantage at all (+0.00), since it was entirely predictable from knowledge of prior variables. The effect of this adjustment is most striking in the case of prospective economic competence where a raw mean of +0.23 compares with an adjusted mean of +0.02. This suggests that although assessments of competence powerfully discriminated between voters at an individual level, they contributed very little (+0.0034) to Labour’s plurality. Taken as a whole, Table 7 suggests that Labour won simply because there were more Labour than Tory identifiers. Labour also gained votes because the economy had improved over the previous 12 months, because the government had handled the issue of Europe and taxation well, and because Blair was a stronger leader than Hague. On the other hand, voters’ authoritarian tendencies, sceptical attitudes towards the single currency, together with critical evaluations of the government’s performance on asylum and crime all represented hurdles of varying degrees to Labour’s victory in 2001. If this is correct, some of the criticisms of the Tories’ ‘near-term’ focus on asylum and crime should be re-examined. Given the position they found themselves in early 2001, it made sense to highlight Labour’s failings in these areas (Lansley, 2002). If this general interpretation is correct then it follows that Labour’s historic second victory was based largely on the long-term identities and 336 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY fundamental predispositions of British voters. Party identification contributes +0.1760 to Labour’s plurality of +0.2573, while predispositions collectively contribute +0.1436. By contrast, current controversies and conditions contribute just +0.0060, evaluations of the Labour government –0.0201, leadership evaluations +0.0225, prospective evaluations and party image +0.0136 and affective evaluations just +0.0090. These five ‘short-term’ variables together contribute a mere +0.0301 to Labour’s plurality. If the traditional BES measure of party identification is to be believed, the 2001 election was ‘in the bag’ and little short of an electoral earthquake could have prevented a Labour landslide. Those who seek to explain the outcome must therefore explain why Labour had become ‘the natural party of government’ and enjoyed a long-term advantage in terms of partisanship.

Models Using the New Measure of Party Identification Given the fundamental importance attached to party identification as an explanation of the vote and the controversy that surrounds the measurement of this concept, it appears wise to assess the effect of alternative measures on our characterization of the 2001 general election. Table 8 therefore contains revised estimates derived from a second model in which responses to the new question are taken as the indicator of partisanship. The replacement of the traditional measure has an appreciable impact. Although the theoretical effect (ATE) of party identification does not differ between Tables 7 and 8, the apparent effect of the other predispositions (liberal–authoritarian positions and left–right self-placement) double (from 0.06 to 0.10 and from 0.09 to 0.20, respectively). Moreover, the incorpor- ation of the new measure also alters the estimated effects of variables located in later stages. The ATEs for both general retrospective evaluations and attitudes towards the single currency increase compared with Table 7, while one additional variable (retrospective evaluations of household finances) now becomes statistically significant. This second model therefore plausibly suggests that voters were influenced by assessments of both national and household conditions. In addition, evaluations of the government’s record on education and ‘making life better for individuals’ become statistically significant.19 Both these findings are intuitively plausible and add to the suspicion that the BES measure conceals the causal impact of some variables. The estimated effect of leadership also increases (‘keeps promises’ increases from 0.11 to 0.17, while ‘capable of strong government’ increases from 0.09 to 0.18) as do party images (‘out of touch’ from 0.06 to 0.08). Similarly, the effect of prospective evaluations of economic competence increases (from 0.17 to 0.33) as do affective evaluations of the parties (from 0.30 to 0.55). The new measure of party identification also influences the overall characterization of the aggregate outcome. Party identification now contributes somewhat less (+0.1320 compared with +0.1760) to Labour’s plurality, since it is less strongly skewed in Labour’s favour, while predispositions 337 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

Table 8. The importance of explanatory themes Adjusted Aggregate Bivariate ATE Mean Mean Impact Predispositions New Party identiﬁcation 0.92 0.88 +0.15 +0.15 +0.1320 Liberal–authoritarian position 0.26 0.10 –0.53 –0.53 –0.0530 Left–right self-placement 0.74 0.10 +0.00 +0.00 +0.0000 +0.0790 Current conditions General economy 0.69 0.15 +0.07 +0.08 +0.0120 Personal economy 0.41 0.07 +0.00 +0.01 +0.0007 Single currency 0.49 0.14 –0.10 –0.05 –0.0070 +0.0057 Retrospective evaluations of Labour government Asylum 0.50 0.06 –0.34 –0.30 –0.0180 Crime 0.60 0.07 –0.12 –0.09 –0.0063 Education 0.74 0.08 +0.12 +0.08 +0.0064 Life better 0.76 0.10 +0.09 +0.05 +0.0050 Taxation 0.76 0.16 +0.08 +0.02 +0.0032 –0.0097 Leader Image Keeps promises 1.01 0.17 +0.06 +0.00 +0.0000 Capable strong leadership 0.79 0.18 +0.32 +0.26 +0.0468 +0.0468 Party image In/out of touch 0.85 0.08 +0.25 +0.16 +0.0128 Economic competence 0.79 0.33 +0.23 +0.02 +0.0066 +0.0194 Like 1.37 0.55 +0.18 0.04 +0.0220 Average vote +0.2573 Total explained +0.1632 Total unexplained +0.0941 collectively contribute +0.0790 (compared with +0.1436). Short-term factors, however, contribute more to Labour’s victory. Current controversies and conditions contribute +0.0057, evaluations of the government –0.0097, leadership evaluations +0.0468, prospective evaluations and party image +0.0194 and affective evaluations +0.0220.20 In total, these four ‘short- term’ variables now appear to contribute +0.0842 to Labour’s plurality. According to this characterization, Labour’s victory was not set in stone but ‘won’ by Labour governing well, providing strong leadership and remain- ing in touch with voters. Alternatively, it was ‘lost’ by the Tories failing to provide an alternative that people were willing to vote for. 338 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY

Before moving to conclusion it is useful to explore the sources of Labour’s victory in a little more detail. In particular, the results in Table 8 suggest that voters’ favourable evaluations of Tony Blair as an individual contributed fairly significantly to Labour’s victory. As I noted before, however, this conclusion depends at least in part on the assumption that evaluations of specific leadership traits are prior to party images. The effect of imposing a different set of assumptions about the causal order is examined in Table 9. In particular it is assumed that leadership traits and party images are located at the same stage in the causal order. The aggregate effect calculations for all variables located before party and leader images are the same as in Table 8 and can simply be carried over to Table 9. The ATEs and adjusted means of the leader and party images, however, do change. In particular, controlling for prospective evaluations and party images, evaluations of leader ‘strength’ cease to be statistically significant and are deleted from the model. Moreover, while ‘keeps promises’ is still significant, its adjusted mean is zero, so that (when multi- plied by the mean score) the variable contributes nothing to the aggregate election outcome! Evaluations of economic competence on the other hand now contribute much more since its large ATE (0.34) combines with a larger adjusted mean (0.11) to contribute +0.0374 to the aggregate outcome. These alternative assumptions about the causal order between leader and party images do not alter the broad conclusions that the size of Labour’s victory was greatly influenced by short-term factors. However, ‘sensitivity testing’ does demonstrate that conclusions about the relative importance of leader and party images do depend on the precise assumptions about causal order and indicate the need for further research to establish which causal order is most appropriate (Bartle and Crewe, 2002: 81).

Table 9. Alternative assumptions about the causal order Aggregate Adjusted Impact Aggregate ATE Mean Party/Leader Impact Predispositions +0.0790 Current conditions +0.0057 Retrospective evaluations –0.0097 Party/leader image Keeps promises 0.12 +0.00 +0.0000 In/out of touch 0.09 +0.21 +0.0189 Economic competence 0.34 +0.11 +0.0374 +0.0563 +0.0563 Like 0.55 +0.06 +0.0330 +0.0330 Average vote +0.2573 Total explained +0.1643 Total unexplained +0.0930

339 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

Conclusions

Throughout this article I have emphasized the importance of the assumptions on which the analyses are based: particularly the pre-statistical assumptions about causal order and the validity of indicators. Viewed in isolation, each assumption is problematic. Taken together, the steady accumulation of assumptions is truly unnerving and greatly increases the uncertainty attached to the estimated effects. It will be interesting in due course, therefore, to examine whether estimates based on the ‘rolling thunder’ and ‘post-election’ components of the BES provide different characterizations of the election. Notwithstanding these caveats, the process of specifying a causal model, defining terms and estimating coefficients has proved useful. In particular it has helped to clarify the importance of seemingly simple assumptions about the measurement of variables and causal order. It has contributed to our understanding of the 2001 general election and suggested that some of the ‘instant’ explanations – such as the importance that some have attached to evaluations of William Hague – may be incorrect. The analyses have demon- strated that many of the hypotheses about voting provide ‘complementary’ rather than competing explanations of both individual vote decisions and election outcomes. The estimates contained in Table 7 suggest that the election was the product of factors that were ‘in place’ well before the formal campaign itself and that short-term factors contributed very little to Labour’s 2001 victory. The estimates in Table 8, however, provide a slightly different characterization. They, too, emphasize the fundamental importance of long-term partisanship in securing Labour’s victory, but also suggest that short-term factors contributed heavily to Labour’s plurality. In both cases evaluations of Labour’s record in office appear to have reduced Labour’s share of the vote. The outcome of the 2001 general election may therefore have been a triumph of (prospective) hope over (retrospective) experience, though – as noted earlier – other long-term experiences were presumably responsible for Labour’s long-term partisan advantage. Taken as a whole, these findings underline the importance of producing improved measures of partisanship. In the absence of multi-wave panel data that speak to the validity of the two measures of party identification, it is unclear whether the new or the traditional BES question is the more valid measure of party identification. Moreover, it is arguable that party loyalties are inherently unstable and that they are often updated in accordance with recent political experiences and opinions (Fiorina, 1981). It may therefore be the case that whatever indicator of partisanship is preferred, including such a variable as an explanation of vote, conceals the prior effect of short- term factors on partisanship. Analysts who support this view would undoubtedly demand that the party identification theorists provide us with more compelling models of partisanship. While the characterizations of the 2001 general election contained in Tables 8 and 9 accord with some basic intuitions about the contingent 340 BARTLE: PARTISANSHIP, PERFORMANCE AND PERSONALITY nature of Labour’s 2001 election victory (Bartle, 2002), they are necessarily subject to great debate. These findings also underline the need to determine the most appropriate causal order between party and leadership images, or to determine those cases where leadership images influence party image and vice versa.

Notes

I thank Airo Hino, Jennifer Lees-Marshment and two anonymous reviewers for Party Politics for their generous and very useful comments on a previous draft of this article.

1 Alan Travis, ‘Public Services Is the Key in “Apathetic Landslide”’, Guardian, 9 June 2001. 2 Bartle (1999) also argued that a longer preamble was required in order to clarify the distinction between enduring predisposition and current preference. This criticism could also be made of the NES measure of course. 3‘With Britain in economic difficulties, which party do you think could handle the problem best – the Conservatives under Mr Hague or Labour under Mr Blair?’ 4 ‘The rolling thunder’ component of the BES was a free-standing 4500-person rolling election campaign survey. Approximately 150 interviews were conducted each day during the election campaign by telephone. 5 The pre-election survey also contained a question that asked voters to name ‘the most important issue’ and then nominate the ‘best party’ to deal with that issue. It is possible to incorporate these data in the models. However, it is difficult to attach much meaning to this evidence since: (1) some respondents could not name the most important issue and (2) the effect of prospective evaluations may have varied from issue to issue. 6 At least according to the problematic ‘Michigan’ assumptions. 7 The fieldwork for the pre-election survey took place between 3 March and 14 May 2001. Approximately 75 percent of interviews took place in March and 21 percent in April. The post-election fieldwork took place between 8 June and 30 September. Approximately 50 percent of interviews took place in June and 35 percent in July. 8 The omission of relevant variables may explain the ‘unexplained contributions’ reported in Tables 7, 8 and 9. 9 However, since vote is defined as Labour versus Conservative, and Liberal Democrat voters are excluded, this limitation is not so important. 10 Most of the variables in the vote models are composites of questions relating to both the Conservative and Labour parties. The formula for these scores is simply (Labour score – Conservative score)/2. Scores can range between +1 (if the respondent thinks that Labour is united while the Tories are divided) to –1 (if the respondent thinks that Labour is divided while the Tories are united). 11 Scoring variables in this way is problematic since, in general, a score of 0 cannot be assumed to represent a ‘neutral’ score. Question wording can profoundly affect the apparent distribution of opinion in relation to any issue and produce ‘skewed’ responses (Zaller, 1992). 341 PARTY POLITICS 9(3)

12 It should be noted that the authors of The American Voter were all too aware of the limitations of the funnel of causality. They noted ‘like all physical analogies for complex and intangible processes [it] becomes misleading if pressed too far’ (Campbell et al., 1960: 24). 13 It should be noted that defining the ‘choice’ in terms of Labour versus Conserva- tive constitutes ‘selection on the dependent variable’, since it excludes examination of voting for other parties and non-voting. Various ‘statistical methods’ have been proposed for this problem (Alvarez et al., 2000), but none of the proposed techniques, such as multinomial logit or probit, enable one to produce an overall characterization of the election. 14 Denk and Finkel (1992) have provided a method of estimating the aggregate impact of variables using binomial logistic regression. However, this method has not been adopted by many analysts to date and could not be applied in the present case to provide an overall characterization of the aggregate election outcome. 15 The coefficients from this final regression model would estimate the ‘direct’ effects of each variable (that portion of the total effect that is not mediated by some other variable). 16 The model assumes that responses to the question about the single currency can be coded as a continuous variable. Relaxing this assumption and coding responses as dummy variables makes little difference to the overall results. 17 Voters were also asked to say whether they ‘liked’ the party leaders. The associated variable was not statistically significant when included in the vote model. 18 The ‘unadjusted mean’ is the constant from a regression that includes all prior variables as predictors. By definition, the constant represents the value of the target variable that cannot be explained by prior variables (see Miller and Shanks, 1996: Ch. 17). 19 Retrospective evaluations of Labour’s performance on education are not statistically significant in the equivalent logistic regression. This is the only case where a variable that was significant in OLS was not significant in logistic regression. 20 It is also worth adding that, although retrospective evaluations contribute less (in net terms) in Table 8 compared with Table 7, this is because the positive and negative contributions ‘cancel out’. The magnitude of retrospective evaluations is greater in Table 8 ignoring the signs.

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JOHN BARTLE is a Lecturer in Government at the University of Essex. His research interests include voting behaviour, British political parties and political knowledge. ADDRESS: Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, C04 3SQ, UK. [email: [email protected]]

Paper submitted 26 June 2002; accepted for publication 9 September 2002.

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