ABSTRACT
In chapter 1 we traced the development of a two-tier system of election campaigning over the past 100 years or so. During this period various changes in the legal and organisational framework of elections, technological developments in the field of mass communications, and the increasing nationalisation of politics have all served to increase the significance of the national campaign. By the 1950s, although it could be argued that local campaigning still had a significant role to play in mobilising voters, in practice it was generally held to be of little importance. The relatively low status of constituency campaigning in the post-war period is reflected in the fact— that it does not figure very prominently in the extensive literature on elections and electoral behaviour. There are some personal accounts by politicians and journalists, and during campaigns the quality national press regularly publish impressionistic sketches of the campaign at the grass roots, but the academic literature —including the literature specifically concerned with campaigning — tends to focus on the national level and has little to say about what goes on in the constituencies.
