Local context, retrospective economic evaluations, and voting: The 1997 general election in England and Wales

Local context is widely believed to influence voting behavior with, for exa mple, the voters' evaluation of the state of their local economy affecting whether they choose to reward or punish the incumbent government. Such rewa rd-punish models apply in the United Kingdom at the national scale: those w ho believe that the government has delivered prosperity vote for its return , whereas those who believe that its policies have produced a worsening eco nomic situation vote against it. This article shows that the operation of t his calculus varies spatially, according to the level of unemployment in th e voter's home area: the higher the local level of unemployment the lower t he probability of someone who thought that government polices had delivered national prosperity voting for the incumbent government. It also shows tha t this is a consequence of cross-pressured situations. Those who thought th at the government's policies had delivered both national and local prosperi ty were very likely to vote for it; those who thought that the policies had delivered national but not local prosperity were less likely to vote for i t-especially in areas of high unemployment.