ABSTRACT
In chapter 2 we suggested that the detailed analysis of constituency campaigning has been hampered by the fact that it is difficult to find an adequate measure of the relative strength or intensity of campaigning by local parties. The consistent scepticism of the Nuffield studies concerning the electoral effects of campaigning, for example, has been largely based on impressionistic evidence rather than on any rigorous measure of variations in campaign effort. Those studies which have attributed more weight to local campaigning have been in-depth analyses of campaigns in individual parliamentary constituencies or in local elections (Holt and Turner, 1968; Bochel and Denver, 1971; Edinburgh University Politics Group, 1982a, 1982b). Clearly, in order to compare the intensity or effectiveness of campaigns across parties or constituencies and to analyse the electoral effects of campaigning more generally, what is needed is a systematic measure of the strength of campaigning which can be applied in a large number of cases. In this chapter, we use responses to our survey of agents to construct such a measure, and then use it to compare the local campaigns of the major parties in different kinds of seat, different parts of the country, and so on. First, however, we consider recent attempts to find alternative, indirect measures of constituency campaign intensity.
