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Measurements of Backbench Attitudes by Guttman Scaling of Early Day Motions: A Pilot Study, Labour, 1968–69

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

John Leece  and
Hugh Berrington
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Extract

This research is addressed to the problem of constructing scales of political attitudes within the British House of Commons. Our aim, broadly, is to produce measures that will enable us to distinguish between backbenchers of the same party – for example, a Right-Left scale applied to the Labour party – and to relate these data to biographical variables and other measures of political behaviour. Moreover, by observing the relationship between Members' positions on different scales, and changes over time, we hope to learn more about the belief-systems of Members of Parliament.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 1977 , pp. 529 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 For example Macrae, D. Jr., Issues and Parties in Legislative Voting – Methods of Statistical Analysis (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).Google Scholar

2 Finer, S. E., Berrington, H. B. and Bartholomew, D. J., Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons 1955–1959 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Berrington, H. B., Backbench Opinion in the House of Commons 1945–1955 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1973).Google Scholar

3 See Macrae, , Issues and Parties in Legislative Voting.Google Scholar

4 Shepard, R. N., Romney, A. K., Nerlove, S. B., Multi-Dimensional Scaling (New York and London: Seminar Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Everitt, B. S., Cluster Analysis (London: Heinemann, 1974).Google Scholar

5 Wishart, D., Clustan 1A User Manual (University of St Andrews, 1969).Google Scholar

6 Stouffer, S. A., Borgatta, E. F., Hays, D. G. and Henry, A. F., ‘A Technique for Improving Cumulative Scales’, Public Opinion Quarterly, XVI (1952), 273–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Nie, N. H., Bert, D. H. and Hull, C. H., The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970).Google Scholar

8 Nie, et al. , The Statistical Package, p. 201.Google Scholar

9 In our main study we intend to use a more elaborate set of biographical data.