Did Local Activism Really Matter? Liberal Democrat Campaigning and the 2001 British General Election

Abstract

The importance of campaigning at British general elections seems to vary across the country's three main political parties, although it is of particular salience for the Liberal Democrats. Existing research suggests that the Liberal Democrats use the combination of local success and grass-roots activism as a stepping stone to achieve the prize aim of parliamentary representation. It could be argued that local factors are likely to account for more of the spatial variation in votes for the Liberal Democrats than is the case for the main parties. Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) to model the parties’ relative vote shares, we find that intensive campaigning, not only what is spent but also the role of the local MP as a representative, particularly where there were first-time incumbents, was a significant influence on the Liberal Democrat vote in 2001 when compared against the Conservatives and Labour.