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The Effectiveness of Local Party Campaigns in 2005: Combining Evidence from Campaign Spending and Agent Survey Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2009

Edward Fieldhouse  and
David Cutts
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Abstract

Recently there has been a renewed interest in the role of local campaigns and their effectiveness on increasing turnout and support for political parties. However, there is a long-standing debate over the best way to measure campaign effort. This article advances the current literature by using a latent variable modelling approach to utilize, for the first time, evidence frorvey of agents, official records of campaign spending and individual voter survey data to produce a combined measure of campaign effort. This measure (latent variable) is then used in a structural equation model of party performance to assess the effect of the campaign effort of the three main parties at the 2005 British general election. In terms of both the delivery and effectiveness of campaigns the parties are found to behave in a way consistent with a rational model of party behaviour, though constrained by contextual factors.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , April 2009 , pp. 367 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

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24 Denver and Hands, Modern Constituency Electioneering.

25 Not all the same questions were asked in the four surveys of electoral agents since 1992. Fisher and Denver have therefore used two modernization indexes (A and B) with the latter covering the elections since 1997 (J. Fisher and D. Denver, ‘From Foot Slogging to Call Centres: Constituency Campaigning 1992–2005’ (prepared for the Political Science Association Conference, 2006; see <http://www.psa.ac.uk>)).

26 Whiteley and Seyd , ‘Local Party Campaigning and Voting Behaviour in Britain’.

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36 See also Pattie et al., ‘Measuring Local Campaign Effects’.

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39 The arrows represent linear regressions for the Xs and continuous Ys, and non-linear regressions (e.g. probit, logit) for binary or ordinal Ys.

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41 For each party, the response rates were as follows: 334 Labour; 212 Liberal Democrats and 68 Conservatives.

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44 The indirect effect is simply calculated as the product of the b coefficients for the relevant paths. The total effect is the direct plus any indirect effects.

45 This information was collected from the parties as part of the Electoral Commission funded project lead by Professor Justin Fisher (see acknowledgments).

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47 Mean figures by target status are available from authors on request.

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53 Wothke, ‘Longitudinal and Multi-Group Modeling with Missing Data’.

54 Here it was important to include party share 2005 given that some unmeasured variable such as the feeling of efficacy of the agent may provide a link between response and the outcome.

55 For Labour, the two variables related to missingness were Labour margin and FT students. Regarding the Conservatives, they were Labour spending and Liberal Democrat margin.

56 Little and Rubin, Statistical Analysis with Missing Data.

57 The fit of the measurement model (without covariates) also met the criteria for a ‘good fit’ on each of the tests.

58 L. Hu and P. M. Bentler, ‘Cutoff Criteria for fit Indexes in Covariance Structure Analysis: Conventional Criteria versus New Alternatives’, Structural Equation Modeling, 6 (1999), 1–55. Detailed model fit statistics are available from the authors on request.

59 In the measurement model (without covariates) this loading was insignificant. Full results of the measurement model are available from the authors on request.

60 Fisher et al., ‘Constituency Campaigning in 2005’.

61 Liberal Democrat by Labour = 0.38, and Liberal Democrats by Conservatives = 0.52, both significant at p = 0.95.

62 Abramowitz, ‘Incumbency, Campaign Spending and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections’; Jacobson ‘Campaign Spending Effects in U.S. Senate Elections’.

63 Fieldhouse and Cutts, ‘The Liberal Democrats’.

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67 See also Fisher et al., ‘Constituency Campaigning in 2005’.

68 Fisher et al., ‘Constituency Campaigning in 2005’.

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