Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T19:53:41.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Measuring Electoral Change: Look Before You Abandon Swing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

John G. Gibson
John G. Gibson*
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Political scientists should reject Richard Rose's advice in PS (1991) to abandon the use of swing, in favor of his own alternative measures of electoral change, in three or multiparty electoral contests. Given the ubiquity of such electoral contests, this advice has a great potential influence on future election studies. However, a balanced judgment requires subjecting alternative measures to equal scrutiny. This note will do this by bringing relevant evidence to bear on the actual performance of swing and Rose's alternative, as a measure of variations in electoral movements between different areas. The findings are most revealing and in the final section of this note reasons for them will be put forward.

Rose maintains, in his critique of David Butler and Stephen D. Van Beek (1990), that swing can only be meaningfully used as a measure of electoral change between elections where virtually the entire vote is split between two parties. On this basis he claims that “swing is not applicable in nine-tenths of competitive party systems because two parties do not monopolize the vote.” As Rose shows, reliance on swing can ignore important changes in third party votes, which may often be an important determinant of the swing between the two main parties.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 195 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Butler, David and Kavanagh, Dennis. 1984. The British General Election of 1983. London: MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, David and Van Beek, Stephen D.. 1990. “Why Not Swing? Measuring Electoral Change.” PS 23: 178–83.Google Scholar
Curtice, John and Steed, Michael. 1984. “Statistical Appendix to Butler and Kavanagh.” The British General Election of 1983. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar
Gibson, John. 1988. “Rate Increases and Local Elections: A Different Approach and a Different Conclusion.” Policy and Politics 16: 197–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, John and Stewart, John. 1992. “Poll Tax, Rates, and Local Elections.” Political Studies (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Ronald J. 1985. The Geography of English Politics. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Johnston, Ronald J., Pattie, Christopher J., and Allsopp, J. Geoffrey. 1988. A Nation Dividing. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
McAllister, Ian and Rose, Richard. 1984. The Nationwide Competition for Votes. London: Frances Pinter.Google Scholar
Owens, John R., and Wade, Larry L.. 1988. “Economic Conditions and Constituency Voting in Great Britain.” Political Studies 36: 30–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard. 1991. “The Ups and Downs of Elections, or Look Before You Swing.” PS 24(1): 29–33.Google Scholar