Modern Constituency Electioneering Local Campaigning in the 1992 General Election

In this first major study of grass-roots election campaigning for thirty years, David Denver and Gordon Hands survey the evolution of campaigning over the past century and describe in detail how the organised their constituency campaigns in the 1992 election. The study - funded by the Economic & Social Research Council - examines and evaluates the campaign techniques that are now employed, and looks in detail at the role of local media and national party organizations. Basing their analysis mainly on a large-scale postal survey of election agents in Britain, the authors have been able to construct a quantitative measure of the strength of the constituency campaigns mounted by the different parties across the country, and to use this measure to assess the effects of local campaigning.

In this study of grass-roots election campaigning, the authors survey the evolution of campaigning over the past century and describe how the parties organized their constituency campaigns in the 1992 election. They examine and evaluate the campaign techniques used.

EPOP Newsletter- "The book is a model of social science research and states its conclusions modestly but persuasively...the definitive study on the subject" New Labour Organiser -"This is a very useful and intelligent review of a surprising long neglected topic.....Such a book is especially welcome at a time of great uncertainty over the fragmentation of mass media."British Politics Group Newsletter - "...every scholar and every library with a special interest in British political parties will want (this book) on their shelves...This is an enourmously significant book for understanding the links between political parties and elections in Britain. Denver and Hands will be cited repeatedly in subsequent efforts to understand those links."Parliamentary Affairs - "This counter-intuitive finding presents a challenge to many modernist assumptions about elections in the age of mass media communications.