Testing the Butler-Stokes Model of a Polarization Effect Around the National Swing in Partisan Preferences: England, 1979

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Abstract
In the section of their book Political Change in Britain entitled ‘The Sources of Uniform Swing’, David Butler and Donald Stokes presented a model to account for an apparent paradox in Britain's electoral geography – the relative uniformity of the ‘two party swing’ between elections across all parts of the country. This uniformity is paradoxical because if the national trend in changes of partisan preferences were to apply equally in all areas then the swing against a party experiencing a net loss of votes should be greatest in those areas where it won most votes at the first election: indeed, as Butler and Stokes show, it may even register a net gain of votes where it was weakest, despite the national trend being against it.

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