Vote Blue,Go Green? Cameron's Conservatives and the Environment

How genuine is the Conservative party's rediscovery of the environment? Would a Conservative government led by David Cameron implement a wide‐ranging and progressive environmental policy? This article explores why Cameron has embraced the environment so enthusiastically when Conservative governments have had a poor record of environmental protection and the Conservative party has traditionally shown little interest in the issue. It assesses the impact of Cameron's strategy both on his own party and on the wider world of environmental politics and it evaluates the continuing commitment of the Conservatives to the issue by assessing what kind of policies a future Conservative government might implement. Although Cameron remains committed to the issue and he has already had a positive impact on Labour government policy, he has not yet convinced his party or its supporters, so a future Conservative government would probably represent continuity rather than significant change in environmental policy.     

The Conservatives' Grassroots 'Revival'

Healthy party grassroots constituency organisations play an important part in modern electoral campaigning, especially in marginal seats, and political parties try to concentrate their efforts on those closely contested constituencies. Recent evidence on party fund-raising at a local level shows that the Conservatives have taken considerable strides in supporting their campaign organisations in marginals, and have done so in a way which enhances their long-term campaigning potential there. The party's grassroots organisations are increasingly well-resourced, especially in the seats the Conservatives need to win back if they are to win the next General Election. However, while fund-raising suggests a healthy grassroots where it is needed, party membership data highlights continued problems for the party.     

Far from Home: Conservative Leadership Selection from Heath to Cameron

The Conservative Party is the oldest of the 'mainstream' British parties, but has only elected its leader since 1965. In this article, I explain the variety of methods used by the Party to select its leader and assess the impact of 'democratisation' over time. I begin by examining the informal 'system', known as the 'magic circle', which existed until 1965, and explain how and why it came to be abandoned. I then discuss the six elections between 1965 and 1997, when the Tory leader was chosen exclusively by the Party's MPs. Finally, I assess the impact of the 'Hague rules', according to which Party members have the final say, between their adoption in 1998 and the election of David Cameron in 2005.     

Transcending Thatcherism? Ideology and the Conservative Party Leadership Mandate of David Cameron

This paper examines the voting motivations of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary ballot of the Conservative Party leadership election of 2005. By constructing a data set of the voting behaviour of Conservative parliamentarians in the final parliamentary party ballot, and by determining the ideological disposition of the 2005 PCP this paper examines the ideological disposition of the candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. The paper identifies the increasing Thatcherite nature of the PCP across three dominant ideological divides of contemporary British Conservatism-economic, European, and social, sexual and moral policy. Through such an analysis the paper demonstrates how the modernising David Cameron, who came first in the final parliamentary ballot and then won the membership ballot, transcended the traditional ideological voting motivations of candidates' vis-à-vis their electorate. Most significantly, the paper demonstrates that the European ideological policy divide was not a factor in the succession contest, unlike the succession contests of 1990, 1997 and 2001.     

What are we gonna be when we grow up? SYRIZA's institutionalisation and its new “governing party” role

The aim of this paper is to analyse the organizational model of one of the most successful European radical left parties, the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA). Our goal is to analyse SYRIZA's organizational transition from the electoral arena to the government (2015). Our main finding is that SYRIZA started as a socially-oriented organization led by an oligarchic dominant coalition and converted itself into a political party, characterized by a prevailing role of the party in public office/party government. Both the institutional environment and the party organization's first configuration have had an impact on this change.     

‘Rivers of Blood’ and Britain's Far Right

This article examines the impact of Enoch Powell's speech on Britain's numerous right‐wing fringe groups and their response—in particular, that of the National Front, who benefitted the most from Powell's intervention on race and for a brief moment became Britain's fourth political party. It begins by looking at the growth of post‐World War II British fascism and how its emphasis switched from anti‐Semitism to anti‐colonial immigration. Throughout the piece, the relationship between Britain's far right and the Conservative party is examined to show how Powell inadvertently blurred the lines between the two. The article concludes with the 1979 general election victory of Margaret Thatcher who, by adopting Powellite themes but in more measured tones, destroyed the National Front's dream of an electoral breakthrough.     

Change—and Scepticism—as a Constant: Anthony King on Parties and Party Systems

Tony King had a healthy disrespect for conventional wisdom but a deep appreciation for common sense. Drawing on an eclectic mix of sources, both qualitative and quantitative, he wore his learning lightly, the better to highlight and explain to academic and non‐academic audiences how shifts in society and public opinion drove change inside parties and in the party systems in which they operated. King asked great questions and provided answers that simultaneously captured complexity and the big picture. His provocative interpretations and analysis were always stimulating—and many of them proved highly prescient.     

Anthony King: His Intellectual Legacy. Introduction

The Department of Government at Essex University provided a favourable environment for the development of Anthony King's work. While his primary interest was the UK, his intellectual interests were far broader in scope and informed by comparative insights. His key work was on political leadership, but he also made crucial contributions on other issues such as ungovernability. He had a particular concern with the quality of government, reflected in the Blunders book he wrote with Ivor Crewe.     

Living in the Past or Living in the Future? Analyzing Parties’ Platform Change In Between Elections,The Netherlands 1997–2014

Do parties change their platform in anticipation of electoral losses? Or do parties respond to experienced losses at the previous election? These questions relate to two mechanisms to align public opinion with party platforms: (1) rational anticipation, and (2) electoral performance. While extant work empirically tested, and found support for, the latter mechanism, the effect of rational anticipation has not been put to an empirical test yet. We contribute to the literature on party platform change by theorizing and assessing how party performance motivates parties to change their platform in-between elections. We built a new and unique dataset of >20,000 press releases issued by 15 Dutch national political parties that were in parliament between 1997 and 2014. Utilizing automated text analysis (topic modeling) to measure parties’ platform change, we show that electoral defeat motivates party platform change in-between elections. In line with existing findings, we demonstrate that parties are backward-looking.     

The territoriality of personalization: New avenues for decentralized personalization in multi-level Western Europe

In light of the increasing scholarly attention to the concept of decentralized personalization, this paper argues that the territoriality (the level of government to which an MP belongs) of an MP would also lead to variations in that MP’s incentive to personalize their campaigns. Using data from the PARTIREP Comparative MP survey, this paper tests the role of the territoriality of an MP in their incentive to personalize their campaigns across nine multi-level countries in Western Europe. Although the level of personalization of campaigns does differ according to territoriality, the underlying explanatory variables do not behave uniformly across territoriality. This paper thus draws attention to the rarely explored role of territory, and the complications it may bring to the explanation of the personalization of politics.