Conceived in Harlesden: Candidate-Centred Campaigning in British General Elections

Milazzo, Caitlin; Townsley, Joshua

Abstract

© 2018 The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society; all rights reserved. Recent decades have seen an increasing trend towards the personalisation of election campaigns, even in systems where candidates have few structural incentives to emphasise their personal appeal. In this article, we build on a growing literature that points to the importance of candidate characteristics in determining electoral success. Using a dataset composed of more than 3700 leaflets distributed during the 2015 and 2017 general elections, we explore the conditions under which messages emphasising the personal characteristics of prospective parliamentary candidates appear in British general election campaign materials. Even when we account for party affiliation, we find that there are important contextual and individual-level factors that predict the use of candidate-centred messaging.

Citation

Milazzo, C., & Townsley, J. (2020). Conceived in Harlesden: Candidate-Centred Campaigning in British General Elections. Parliamentary Affairs, 73(1), 127-146. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsy040

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 12, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Dec 19, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2020
• Deposit Date: Oct 15, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 20, 2020
• Journal: Parliamentary Affairs
• Print ISSN: 0031-2290
• Electronic ISSN: 1460-2482
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 73
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 127-146
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsy040
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1165574
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/pa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pa/gsy040/5253836
• Additional Information: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Parliamentary Affairs following peer review. The version of record is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/pa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/pa/gsy040/5253836
• Contract Date: Oct 15, 2018