Decade of Dealignment
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
| Author | Hugh Berrington |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1984.tb00171.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1984),
XXXII,
117-120
Decade
of
Dealignment
HUGH
BERRINGTON
University
of
Newcastle-upon- Tyne
The General Elections
of
1979
and
1983
may well come to be seen as critical
elections-jointly constituting a watershed in British political development
and similar in significance to the historic American elections of
1932,
of
1896
and
of
1860.
Mrs Thatcher’s victory in
1979
was distinguished by the heaviest swing at
any general election since
1945.
It saw the election
of
a party avowedly
breaking the post-war political consensus which had prevailed since
1950,
if
not before, and offering a new and radical way ahead for the British people. It
also saw an accentuation of the geographic division
of
Britain into two
nations-with Southern England, the Midlands and Wales swinging sharply to
the right, Northern England moving much more softly and Scotland virtually
marking time.
For these reasons the study by Bo Sarlvik and
Ivor
Crewel has been keenly
awaited. The book is based on the British Election Study survey, undertaken at
the University
of
Essex, which incorporates a substantial panel element
so
enabling the authors to trace the evolution
of
party choice back through the
two elections of
1974.
Comparisons with the classic work of Butler and Stokes,
Political Change in
Britain2
are not appropriate. There is indeed little similarity between the two
books.
Decade
of
Dealignment
has, for good reasons, a much narrower focus.
It lacks the scope and the richness
of
the earlier book, partly because David
Robertson, an erstwhile member of the Essex team, will shortly be publishing
‘an extensive analysis of the social determinants of the vote’,3 partly because
much of the data on the
1974
elections has already been explored in a series of
important articles.
There are times when the reader may reflect that the book has been
misnamed. There are three separate elements, not wholly corresponding to the
division imposed by the authors. The first part, written as felicitously (or
more)
as
its subject matter permits, traces ‘the flow
of
the vote’ between
1970
and
1979
and then examines briefly the relationship between voting, and
various structural factors such as occupation, income and housing tenure. The
core
of
the book, however, consists
of
a long and detailed analysis of the role
of issues in the Conservative victory of
1979.
This part of the book is often
heavy-going, and sometimes seems repetitive. There is the danger, in the welter
1
B.
Sarlvik and
1.
Crewe,
Decade
of
Dealignment
(Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press,
2
D.
Butler and
D.
Stokes,
Political Change in Brifain
(London, Macmillan,
1974).
3
Sarlvik and Crewe,
Decade
of
Dealignment,
p.
x.
1983).
0032-3217/84/01/0117-04/$03.00
0
1984
Political Studies
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