Thatcherism and the Conservative Party
Neither spatial models of party competition nor the ‘Westminster’ model of British politics explain the phenomenon of Thatcherism. One explanation of its success, examined by Crewe and Searing, suggests that Mrs Thatcher sought to convert the Conservative party and the wider electorate to her distin...
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Published in | Political studies Vol. 42; no. 2; pp. 185 - 203 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford, UK
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.06.1994
SAGE Publications Clarendon Press Sage Publications Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Neither spatial models of party competition nor the ‘Westminster’ model of British politics explain the phenomenon of Thatcherism. One explanation of its success, examined by Crewe and Searing, suggests that Mrs Thatcher sought to convert the Conservative party and the wider electorate to her distinctive brand of liberal Whiggism and traditional Toryism. They found little evidence of the success of this, however, among the British electorate as a whole. In this paper, data from the first national survey of Conservative party members demonstrates that she had little success in converting the Conservative party to these ideas either, although she did have a secure ideological base within the party. The results also suggest that her successor, John Major, has a rather different support base within the party from that of Mrs Thatcher. The implications of these findings for spatial models of party competition and the Westminster model of British politics are discussed. |
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Bibliography: | ark:/67375/WNG-KQBTRZRX-K istex:B8FA321FB3A1C33C7E25838E60589905652218D9 ArticleID:POST185 ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 |
ISSN: | 0032-3217 1467-9248 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1994.tb01907.x |