The Drivers of Party Change: The British Conservatives Since 1945

Abstract

Why parties change is still not that well understood by political scientists. While there are certain seminal attempts that are routinely cited -- by Panebianco (1988) and Harmel and Janda (1994) -- there have been surprisingly few attempts to apply them in detail to particular parties or groups of parties. Ambitious systematic approaches, then, are trailed, then cited, but never properly engaged with. This paper introduces a project that will do the latter, putting abstract hypotheses through their paces in a real-world, over-time scenario, suggesting where they fall down, where they come through, and how they might be modified and supplemented. Scholars in the comparative, quantitative and formal theoretical traditions may be well on their way when it comes to *how* parties shift or stand pat in response to shifting public opinion and good or bad results, but, they note, they still need case studies if they are ‘to explain in detail *why* parties behave in this way.’ The case study in this paper British Conservative Party between 1945 and 1951, during which period enormous organizational changes occurred. These changes were not driven by the Party’s leader, but its dominant coalition, though not particularly cohesive, made a difference. Underpinning everything, however, was the need to bounce back after the Party’s catastrophic defeat at the hands of Labour in the country’s first post-war election.

Keywords: Conservative Party, British, Change, Leadership, Organizational