The Organization of Opinion Open Voting in England, 1832-68

"The Reform Bill of 1832 was the initial stage in the expansion of the right to vote that ended with full adult suffrage over a century later. The Organization of Opinion is a new analysis of voting and elections in the period between 1832 and the further changes that followed the Second Reform Bill in 1867. It suggests that other explanations of electoral behaviour in the period are problematic and outlines a new analysis based on the importance of local social networks, one that emphasises the close links between politics and the social environment. Mitchell builds a detailed picture of political behaviour at the constituency level, and of the distinctive features of voting and electoral change before the introduction of electoral secrecy in 1872."--BOOK JACKET.

JEREMY C. MITCHELL is a Lecturer in Government at the Open University. His publications include Reforming the Lords (with Anne Davies), and (co-edited with Dirk Berg-Schlosser) Conditions of Democracy in Europe, 1919-39: Systematic Case Studies, and Authoritarianism and Democracy in Europe, 1919-39: Comparative Analyses.