Spatial scale and the neighbourhood effect: Multinomial models of voting at two recent British general elections

Few studies of the neighbourhood effect in British voting patterns have addressed the important issue of spatial scale: at what level do these effects operate (if any), and do they operate simultaneously at more than one? Using the British Household Panel Study data, to which information on the characteristics of the population in the areas around each individual respondent's home have been added, this article finds significant differences in the propensity of individuals to vote either Conservative or Liberal Democrat rather than Labour at two neighbourhood levels as well as at the regional level.