How Voters Change

British voters are volatile: almost half of them switched from one major party to another during the 1980s. And, as this book shows, they changed their political opinions even more readily than their party choices. "How Voters Change" reveals the nature, extent and causes of rapid changes of political allegiance. Only a year before Margaret Thatcher's third election triumph her party trailed in the polls. The authors begin with an analysis of her successful winter-long campaign to restore her government's popularity, assessing the effects of changing opinions on such issues as the economy, defence and the "loony left". The second part of the book deals with the short, official, campaign in May and June 1987, chartering day-by-day changes in public opinion and linking them to the changing content of television news. The authors gauge the extent to which voter's final choices were influenced by economic optimism, the priority given to different issues, party leaders and party credibility. Finally the authors examine voters' reactions to the electoral process and to the election result.
They ask whether they were satisfied with the voting system, the standard of public debate and media coverage, and what conclusions they drew from the result. "How Voters Change" is based upon a sequence of five interviews with each of approximately 1500 voters spread over the year from April 1986 to June 1987. A complex survey design provides the basis for this account of political change in the run-up to the election and in the final campaign. Social forces do not guarantee victory to any party in a volatile electorate. Campaigns are real and open, though the competition is not equal. This study highlights the power of government to manipulate economic expectations and dominate the mass media.