Attitudes and votes at the 1983 general election: explorations of the geography of "deviations'

The thesis of class dealignment proposes that British voters' political attitudes and electoral choices are no longer closely linked to their class position, so that there is need for closer study of people's attitudes. This re-examination of the 1983 British Election Study shows that the vote of only about half the electorate could be predicted through knowledge of their attitudes. Study of the "deviators' - those who voted against the prediction from their attitudes - shows that they were people in cross-pressured situations, including the classic neighbourhood effect. -Authors