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

PARTY POLITICS VOL 9. No.3 pp. 317–345 Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi www.sagepublications.com 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 attach- ment to a political party that is quite distinct from current political prefer- ence (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’,

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