The concept of uniform swing across a set of constituencies is widely used in analyses of British general election results. The uniformity of swing is paradoxical, since only in very special cases will it be the result of a uniform national process. The present paper investigates that paradox, and identifies the spatially varying parameters of electoral change needed to produce uniform swing. Further, it adapts the entropy-maximising procedures to provide best estimates of interconstituency variations in changing voter preferences between elections.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BacharachM, 1970Biproportional Matrices and Input-Output Changes (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass)
ButlerDStokesD E, 1974Electoral Change in Britainsecond edition (Macmillan, London)
4.
ChiltonRPoetR R W, 1973“An entropy maximizing approach to the recovery of detailed migration patterns from aggregate census data”Environment and Planning5135–146
5.
CurticeJSteedM, 1980“An analysis of the voting” in The British General Election of 1979 Eds ButlerDKavanaghD (Macmillan, London) pp 390–431
6.
GudginGTaylorP J, 1979Seats, Votes, and the Spatial Organization of Elections (Pion, London)
7.
JohnstonR J, 1979“Regional variations in the 1979 general election results for England”Area33294–298
8.
JohnstonR J, 1981a“Changing voter preferences, uniform electoral swing, and the geography of voting in New Zealand, 1972–1975”New Zealand Geographer3713–19
9.
JohnstonR J, 1981b“Regional variations in British voting trends, 1966–1979: Tests of an ecological model”Regional Studies1523–32
10.
JohnstonR J, 1981c“Testing the Butler-Stokes model of a polarization effect around the national swing in partisan preferences: England, 1979”British Journal of Political Science11113–117
11.
MackerrasM, 1972Australian General Elections (Angus and Robertson, Sydney)
