Abstract
The rather sudden up- and down-swing of Green Party support in Britain is analysed with the help of time-series and cross-sectional data. A combination of different cycles, namely issue-attention, economic, and electoral cycles, provided a political framework in which green support could rise but was destined to fall again. The effects on the variations of support in time are supported by individual level data which show that the 1989 green vote was an environmental protest vote that did not lead to any realignment of party allegiances. However, there is strong evidence that the Green Party has many potential supporters, and that there is a Green-Liberal Democrat 'axis' of voting choice to supplement the main Labour-Conservative dimension.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-20 |
| Number of pages | 20 |
| Journal | Electoral Studies |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Feb 1996 |
Bibliographical note
Acknowledgements:We are grateful to David Sanders for his help with economic time-series data. A special ‘thank you’ also goes to Green Party staff, and in particular to John Bishop, who helped us enormously over the years in making this project a success, and to Penny Kemp, Jean Lambert and Chris Rose for commenting on previous drafts of this paper. Naturally, we alone are responsible for remaining errors.
Funding Information:
The support of the Economic and Social Research Council is gratefully acknowledged. The work was funded by ESRC awards numbers ROO 23 1488 and ROO2 3 2404.
Sections on environmental public opinion also benefited from Wolfgang Riidig’s work funded by the ESRC Global Environmental Change Research Fellowship, award number ~320273061.