Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Series editors' preface
- Preface
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISCIPLINED PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES
- PART III THE ELECTORATE
- 9 The development of a party-oriented electorate
- 10 The causes of a party-oriented electorate
- 11 The legislative consequences of a party-oriented electorate
- 12 The influence of constituents in Victorian England
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Appendix
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
12 - The influence of constituents in Victorian England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Series editors' preface
- Preface
- PART I INTRODUCTION
- PART II THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISCIPLINED PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES
- PART III THE ELECTORATE
- 9 The development of a party-oriented electorate
- 10 The causes of a party-oriented electorate
- 11 The legislative consequences of a party-oriented electorate
- 12 The influence of constituents in Victorian England
- PART IV CONCLUSION
- Appendix
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
As the polypus takes its colour from the rock to which it affixes itself, so do the Members of this House take their character from the constituencies.
(Robert Lowe)Historians differ widely on the importance of national issues in parliamentary elections during the nineteenth century. At least two strands of opinion tend to discount their importance. First, there is the view that elections were largely controlled by the influence of local elites, so that the meaningful expression of electoral opinion was confined to differences among the upper crust. Second, there is the view that parliamentary elections “were much more a drama enacted about the life of the town … than a means of expressing individual opinions about the matters of the day … the real issue was not the parliamentary representation of the borough, but the relative positions of the electors within the town” (Vincent 1966: xv). Clearly, to the extent that elections did turn chiefly on rivalries of the purely local kind suggested, their use in communicating the policy preferences of voters – even elite voters – was lessened.
In contrast both to the emphasis on influence and to that on localism, there is a strand of opinion which affirms the importance of national issues in elections. R. W. Davis has said of the counties, for example, that “the importance of landed influence has been vastly over-rated” and that “county politics rested on more than the decisions of cosy little caucuses of country gentlemen” (Davis 1972: 37, 98).
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- The Efficient SecretThe Cabinet and the Development of Political Parties in Victorian England, pp. 148 - 166Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987