Welsh Journals

The Rise of the 'Alliance' Parties in the 1983 General Election in Wales: Continuity or Discontinuity in Voting Correlates? R.C.PRENTICE Department of Social Policy, University College of Swansea. (Received June 1983; in revised form September 1983) Abstract This paper uses a tabular variant of non-parametric correlation analysis to analyse the determinants of the share of votes cast in the 1983 General Parliamentary Election in Wales. Social class is con- firmed as the continuing basis of support for the Conservative and Labour parites. Discontinuity is found for the former association of an agricultural population and support for the Liberal Party is found no longer to be the case for Alliance support. Continuity in support for Plaid Cymru is confirmed as still broadly associated with Welsh culture. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to assess how far the rise of the Alliance parties in the 1983 General Parliamentary election caused continuit- ies and discontinuities in electorial support. First, a definition of general determinants of voting, past and present, is required. Second, it is necessary to identify any constituencies with patterns exceptional to these general trends, and, if possible, to seek to ex- plain these residual positions. Here a tabular variant of non- parametric correlation analysis is used to investigate voting patterns. This technique has been used by the author to explain trends to non- statisticians, but in addition to being a helpful teaching device it serves also as a useful analytical tool. The following discussion of voting correlates acts as a useful demonstration of this. The 1983 General Parliamentary Election was contested with new constituencies which are shown in Figure 1. In Wales, 35 of the 38 constituencies had redrawn boundaries, compared to earlier elect- ions, or were çompletely new. The Conservative, Alliance, Labour and Plaid Cymru parties contested each seat so that in this election 'four party politics' were in operation. 'Four party politics', however, were compounded by varying electoral success in part determined by varying electoral 'concentration' (the extent to which votes for a party are located in a few constituencies, as opposed to being spread over many constituencies) (Table 1 and, cf. Scammon, 1975). 'Four