National and local party election agendas

McSweeney, Dean; Harrison, Lisa

Abstract

In the saliency theory of elections parties are seen as monolithic. Each party emphasises the issues they own to gain electoral advantage. There are no rival agendas generated by different factions within the party or its territorial subdivisions. We test this assumption in the 2005 UK general election, comparing national party communications with those of local parties in the South West of England. We found consistency in the issue emphases of Labour's national and local campaigns. But there were divergences in priotities between the national and local campaigns of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. We seek to account for these differences in emphasis. © 2008 McDougall Trust, London.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Deposit Date: Dec 19, 2011
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 21, 2016
• Journal: Representation
• Print ISSN: 0034-4893
• Electronic ISSN: 1749-4001
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 44
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-13
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00344890701869041
• Keywords: party manifestos, campaign activity, local parties
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/1020342
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00344890701869041
• Contract Date: Feb 21, 2016