PROSPECTIVE AND COMPARATIVE OR RETROSPECTIVE AND INDIVIDUAL - PARTY LEADERS AND PARTY SUPPORT IN GREAT-BRITAIN

We argue that voters' assessments of party leaders are comparative and prospective rather than individual and retrospective. Therefore, a pr ospective leadership-comparison evaluation should outperform a leader- approval, retrospective indicator as a determinant of government and p arty popularity. Using data from 1984-92, a popularity function that i ncludes a variety of economic and political components, and several de pendent variables, we test this hypothesis by comparing the performanc e of a 'best prime minister' question and the more usual 'approval' qu estions about party leaders. We find that the former gives consistentl y better results than the latter.