Floaters, Loyalists and the Independence of Swing and Partisanship

In: Policy & politics, Band 4, Heft 3, S. 15-24

Abstract

A model of movers and stayers ('floaters' and 'loyalists') is outlined (Section 1) in which the transitions and the floaters between one period and another are independent of the position (party or abstention) supported at the earlier time period. This model has some empirical support as a good first approximation to recent British voting behaviour. The conditions under which a national process of this kind can be seen as the aggregation of such processes operating at the constituency (or subgroup) level are established (Section 2). The extension of this model over a succession of time periods is seen to create no problems (Section 3). In Section 4, using a slight extension of the assumptions of Section 2, the (approximate) independence of swing and partisanship is seen as a natural consequence of the model and it is argued that the assumptions used are reasonable in the post-war British context.