Abstract
Analyses of local campaign effects are dominated by aggregate-level analyses of constituency activity. Though individual-level data are available on whether voters are (or remember being) contacted by parties during campaigns, their analysis is fraught with difficulties, not least the extent to which memory of campaign contact is itself conditioned partly on party allegiance, creating a circularity in the analysis of the impact of party contact on vote choice. To some degree, this can be (and has been) dealt with in a regression framework. However, this does not fully deal with the potential difficulties. Ideally, experimental approaches are needed to tease out definitively the effects of campaign exposure on individual’s election decisions. However, these present practical difficulties. In this paper, therefore, we utilise quasi-experimental difference-in-difference and propensity score matching methods to estimate campaign effects at the 2010 British General Election from individual-level data.
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Notes
We have also run similar models using the conventional approach of simple multivariate regression models with control variables (available in Table A1): the results produce campaign contact effects that are similar in magnitude to those discussed below.
The amount candidates can spend on their constituency campaigns is tightly regulated in UK elections. The legally permitted spending limit in each seat is largely a function of the size of the electorate there. As electorates vary from seat to seat, so does the legal maximum. To provide a standardised measure of campaign intensity that is not conflated with constituency size, therefore, we express the amount spent by each candidate as a percentage of the legal maximum expenditure allowed in their seat.
In part, this may reflect the tactical situation at the time of the election. The Conservatives were ahead in the opinion polls and had by some margin the best-resourced national campaign of the three main parties. Labour, meanwhile, was behind and had more limited resources to expend. It expected to lose seats to the Conservatives and was concentrating its campaign efforts heavily on holding its most marginal seats. The Liberal Democrats, too, had only limited resources to expend on their national campaign, and were focussing on the battle in the marginals (both those they held and wanted to retain, and those where they were narrowly behind and hoped to gain).
To conduct the PSM we make use of the psmatch2 command in Stata (Leuven and Sianesi, 2003).
Nor, indeed, random as in a true randomised control trial.
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pattie, c., whitworth, a. & johnston, r. does campaign contact influence individuals’ vote choices? an alternative approach. Eur Polit Sci 14, 279–297 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2015.24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2015.24