ABSTRACT
British centre politics experienced substantial organizational change in the 1980s. In 1981 a new party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), was formed which fought the 1983 and 1987 general elections in alliance with the Liberal Party. Following an acrimonious split in 1989, a majority of the SDP decided to merge with the Liberals and create a new party, the Liberal Democrats. Using surveys both of current members of the Liberal Democrats and of members of the SDP and Liberal parties who did not join the Liberal Democrats, the authors assess the impact of these organizational changes. The paper examines the impact of the SDP on the ideological character of British centre party politics.
