(Page 9 of 27) - Partisan Preferences and Party Loyalty: A challenge to theories of party position authored by Green, Jane.

APSA WORKING PAPER AUGUST 2005

Adams (2001) the position of the Liberal Democrats creates some incentive to squeeze votes
in the middle, but the parties reach equilibrium between the centre and their own partisans.

However, in 2001 the nationalisation-privatisation scale resembled the preference distribution
characteristic of valence issues. There are some partisan differences, but these are much more
minimal than in 1987 (and in 1992) and it is noticeable that there are no longer clearly
identifiable polarized peaks at the far ends of the scale. In 2001, the difference between the
mean value of Conservative and Labour partisans was only 1.62, the Conservative mean was
6.10 and the Labour mean was 4.48.

- Figure 5 about here -

According to existing theory, incentives for centrist party convergence have therefore
increased on this issue. McLean (1982: 80-81) writes, “each successive issue position away
from the centre contains fewer votes than the last; so a party which moves away from the
centre … loses more than two votes for every one it gains”. Therefore the trade-off between
partisans and centrist voters is less acute. This was not true in 1987, because for the two main
parties more votes could be gained at the far extremes than at the centre, particularly if
partisans were more likely to vote. However, in 2001, to attract partisans and centrist voters,
the main parties could be expected to maximize their vote in the centre of the scale. In Figure
5 the costs of moving to the extremes are greater than in Figure 4.

However, this convergence may be unique to the issue of privatisation. The question of
whether to ‘privatise more companies’ is less meaningful by 2001 than in 1987 – there were
simply fewer industries left to privatise (see Heath et al. 1985). On the other hand, the issue of
taxation and public spending was central to the 2001 election (Butler and Kavanagh, 2002).

The tax-spend scale depicts a different trend between 1987 and 2001. On this scale,
distributions were not apparently strongly correlated with partisanship in 1987 or in 2000.
The only degree of polarization in 1987 was found among Alliance identifiers. Just fewer
than 30% peaked at point 1 in 1987. The Labour mean was 3.56, the Conservative mean was
5.25, Liberal Democrat mean was 4.18 and the mean for no party identification was 4.76.
This represented a divergence of Labour and Conservative partisans of 1.69.

- Figure 6 about here -

Likewise, by 2001 there were no strongly diverging preferences by partisanship, as
demonstrated in Figure 7.

- Figure 7 about here -

These distributions suggest that the tax-spend scale represents a valence issue, and with the
exception of Liberal Democrat partisans, also represented a valence issue in 1987. That is to
say, on this issue, although some partisan distinctiveness is evident, there are no clear
polarized divergences in this issue over time.

On this scale all partisans (and those with no

partisan affiliation) have moved towards the left of the scale. Taken together, the 1987 and
2001 preferences suggests that for Liberal Democrats, the issue of tax and spend was
positional but is now a valence issue, whereas for other voters this issue has been relatively
consensual throughout, and particularly in 2001.

A very similar trend is evident on another economic scale, the inflation-unemployment scale.
In 1987 and 2001 the preferences are consensual with a very high peak among all partisans at
point 1 (reduce inflation) and few partisans of any party on the right-hand side. On these two
scales, therefore, tax-spend and inflation-unemployment, the evidence disputes much that has

This was also the case in 1992 and 1997 distribution patterns.

PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION