Constituency Campaigning in the 1997 General Election

Over the last decade, there has been a renewal of interest in, and revaluation of, the effects of local constituency campaigning on the part of both academics and political parties. From the 1950s to the 1980s, as campaigning became more 'nationalised' - dominated by party leaders and focused almost exclusively on the national mass media - local constituency campaigns came to be seen as rather meaningless side-shows. During the 1980s, however, a significant 'revisionist' literature appeared, suggesting that effective and intense constituency campaigning could have a significant impact in terms of improved electoral performance by the parties and, partly as a consequence of this, the parties themselves have recently placed much more emphasis on local campaigning.<br><br>Five studies have been conducted in this series so far, of which four are currently available from the UK Data Archive. These cover the 1992 election (held under SN 3587), the 1997 election (SN 3922), 2001 election (SN 4508) and the 2010 election (SN 6830). A study was conducted in 2005, but the Archive does not hold the 2005 data.<br><br> For the second study in the series, conducted after the 1997 general election, the principal investigators aimed to monitor changes in campaign techniques, develop further an index of campaign strength and to analyse the impact of variations in campaign intensity upon constituency election results.