ABSTRACT
The study of elections has been a continuing source of inter disciplinary conflict, largely between political scientists and socio logists: the latter are accused of taking the politics out of voting studies (Key and Munger, 1959), whereas the former are accused of insufficient attention to sociology (Sheingold, 1973). Geo graphers have not been involved in this conflict, and it is no intention of ours that this book should launch a triangular con test. We make no claims for any distinctive discipline of electoral geography and have no imperial ambitions; our aim is to illus trate the richness of inter-disciplinary study of voting, from a geographical bias. Although the roots of electoral geography can be traced to the
early years of this century (Siegfried, 1913; Kareil, 1916; Sauer, 1918), research by geographers into various aspects of voting has never been more than slight in its volume. With the possible exception of French work, the heritage for current workers in electoral geography consists only of a disconnected set of isolated studies, few in number and limited in purpose. More recently, geographers have developed a greater interest in the topic of elections. An initial programmatic statement sug gested a limited scope for electoral geography, based on a tradi tional concern with maps (Prescott, 1959), but growing awareness of the value of quantitative approaches and of the richness of work in other disciplines has widened the geographer’s horizons quite considerably (McPhail, 1971). A small annual volume of research is now published on electoral themes, which has led one author to claim - much more than we w o u l d t h a t ‘Geography
is particularly important in that it can add an entirely new dimen sion to the study of elections’ (Busteed, 1975, p. 3). As in most disciplines, new developments in geography pro
duce excesses, and there are some studies which, on hindsight, have produced rather obvious results. Others have explored interesting corners of the field, however, and have unearthed some fascinating findings. It is their impact which justifies our writing a geography o f elections, despite an obvious reliance on a wide range of material from other disciplines, notably political science and sociology. There is no set of topics which can be designated as exclusively
the domain of electoral geographers, as indicated by our catholic sources in this book. The result is thus a survey of relevant material which is clearly inter-disciplinary in what we hope is the best sense of that term. Research results and hypotheses from within and beyond the usually defined boundaries of geography are integrated here in a survey of three major topics. The only criterion for inclusion has been relevance to the theme, so that although much of the lesearch is not geographical in origin it is clearly geographical in interest; conversely, all of the works cited, whether by geographers or not, are of interest to those who would understand the full complexity of elections. Modern human geography is often defined as having a focus
on the spatial distributions of phenomena and the processes by which these are generated. In such studies, the adjective ‘geo graphical’ is used as synonymous with spatial or locational effects. To summarize, human geographers are concerned with the spatial organization of society (Morrill, 1970; Abler, Adams and Gould, 1971). This organization comprises two elements: (1) the de facto organization, which is the ‘natural’ reflection of society in spatial patterns - the continuous geographical distributions; and (2) the de jure organization, which is the set of spatial patterns explicitly defined for administrative purposes (Cox, 1973). The pattern of social areas or neighbourhoods in a city is an example of de facto organization, whereas that of parliamentary constituencies or congressional districts exemplifies that of de jure organization. Given this general definition of the geographer’s sphere of
influence, we can identify the many geographical elements in a typical election. Within a city, for example, voters are registered by their home addresses. Where these are depends on which parts (sectors) of the housing market they have access to; the most affluent have most choice and select the more ‘desirable’ areas, whereas the poorest have least choice and are usually allocated to certain prescribed areas. In some societies, other variables - such as race or religion - may combine with class to influence residential choice. The result in all cases is spatial segregation by socio-economic criteria, and perhaps by others as well. It is very often the case that these same criteria are impor tant in shaping people’s political attitudes, and hence how they vote. We might anticipate, therefore, that the spatial patterns of voting - usually for various political parties - will also indicate segregation of people with different views and will reflect the underlying socio-economic segregation. The extent of the asso ciations between these patterns - at all spatial scales and not just within cities - is a basic feature of geographical research into elections. Within the patterns just outlined, where a person lives may
have a still subtler connection with his or her voting behaviour. The location of a home prescribes who are the occupiers’ neigh bours, and in many cases whom they have as friends and acquain tances. This pattern of social contacts may be a major element of the social environment within which voters make up their minds on how to vote, for different social milieux may involve different biases in terms of political discussion and advice. Further, dif ferent areas may receive different levels of attention from parties and their candidates in the attempts to win votes, thereby extending the range of the locational or geographical influences on voting decisions. Finally, where a voter lives determines by whom he is repre
sented, which may or may not be the candidate(s) for whom he voted. The determining factor is the set of de jure spatial dis tricts - often termed constituencies - which form the organiza tional framework for elections and send the representatives to the parliament or similar assembly. The location of constituency
boundaries can influence the political complexion of the district, and hence the nature of its representation, and so geographers are interested in the boundary-drawing process. Further, the location of these boundaries can have major influences on the overall election result, through the translation of votes into patterns of representation, which can produce a peculiarly geo graphical influence on representation. We have identified three main foci of geographical interest in
electoral studies. First, there is the geography o f voting itself; secondly, there is the set of geographical influences on voting; and finally, there is the geographical influence on representation. These three form the framework for the remainder of the book; to provide initial illustration of each so as to set the scene for the greater detail to come, we conclude the present chapter with an example of a classical study from each substantive area.
