LOCAL ECONOMIC CONTEXTS AND CHANGING PARTY ALLEGIANCES AT THE 1992 BRITISH GENERAL-ELECTION

Controversy has surrounded the explanation of one of the most striking features of recent British General Elections: the rapidly changing re gional geography of the vote. While some analysts have seen this as ev idence of the impact of local electoral contexts on voting decisions, others have claimed that apparent regional effects are merely a conseq uence of poorly specified models. In this paper, new data from the 199 2 British Election Study are employed to demonstrate the independent i mpact of regional economic context upon the vote-switching behaviour o f individual British electors between the 1987 and 1992 General Electi ons.