Critical Elections : British Parties and Voters in Long-Term Perspective

Did Labour's landslide victory in 1997 mark a critical watershed in British party politics? Did the radical break with 18 years of Conservative rule reflect a fundamental change in the social and ideological basis of British voting behaviour? Critical Elections brings together leading scholars of parties, elections and voting behaviour to provide the first systematic overview of long-term change in British electoral politics. Part 1 analyzes new patterns of party competition by evaluating changes in party ideology, parliament, party members and loyalists. Part 2 assesses the case for the emergence of new social alignments by analyzing voting behaviour in terms of class, race, region, and gender and the decline of voter turnout. Part 3 focuses attention on the evidence for new issue alignments by examining the impact of left-right ideology, the key issues of Europe and devolution and the rise of 'new politics'. This book will provide an invaluable lens through which to view and understand comtemporary British politics, using a common intellectual framework throughout and concluding w