Abstract
Previous studies of party competition and of voting behaviour often seem to talk past, rather than to, each other (for further discussion see Bowler, 1990; Budge and Farlie, 1983a; Budge and Farlie, 1983b). This separation of voting and party behaviour is particularly striking in the terms of the academic literature on the impact of campaigning. Campaigns seek to mobilise and/or persuade voters, yet relatively little work has been done in establishing that it is actually the party campaign that produces such results. As other chapters in this volume make clear, party managers and campaign advisers pay a great deal of attention to the way voter attitudes and allegiances shift in response to campaign themes. The study of this interaction between voters and campaigns is, however, much less developed than other branches of the voting studies literature.
Thanks are due to the Academic Senate of the University of California Riverside for research support. The data employed are the 1983 UK General Election Survey conducted by Heath, Jowell and Curtice and the 1983 German Panel Survey. These were obtained from the ICPSR, Ann Arbor, Michigan. None of the original investigators is responsible for the analyses contained in the chapter. The authors are solely responsible for the interpretation of the data.
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Bowler, S., Broughton, D., Donovan, T., Snipp, J. (1992). The Informed Electorate? Voter Responsiveness to Campaigns in Britain and Germany. In: Bowler, S., Farrell, D.M. (eds) Electoral Strategies and Political Marketing. Contemporary Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22411-1_11
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