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Party Organization and the Recruitment of Councillors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Jack Brand
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Extract

In spite of all the research stimulated by the English and Scottish Royal Commissions on Local Government, we still have no clear idea of why people go into local politics, or of what sorts of people become local councillors. A recent study of Glasgow politics threw some light on these questions.1 One of the things it did was to draw attention to the central importance of the political party. Both Royal Commissions ignored the part played by parties, despite the fact that in virtually every large town in Britain the council is dominated by parties.2 One of the major functions the parties perform is the recruitment of candidates and councillors. Indeed, in connection with recruitment the parties are almost the only active agencies.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , October 1973 , pp. 473 - 486
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 A more extensive account of the research can be found in Budge, Ian, Brand, J. A., Margolis, Michael and Smith, A. L. M., Political Stratification and Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The Commissions are Royal Commission on Local Government in England (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 4040, 1969),Google Scholar and Royal Commission on Local Government in Scotland (Edinburgh: HMSO, Cmnd. 4150, 1969).Google Scholar For work on local government parties see, for example, Wiseman, H. V., Local Government At Work (London: Routledge, 1967)Google Scholar, or Bulpitt, J., Party Politics in English Local Government (London: Longmans, 1967).Google Scholar

3 The research was carried out in 1966. Eighty-two of the 111 Glasgow Councillors were interviewed (forty-two Labour and thirty-eight Progressive plus the Lord Provost and the Dean of Guild). Of the twenty-nine non-contacts, five refused and eleven could not find time to meet an interviewer during the two months when interviewing took place. At the same time as these interviews we also interviewed a random sample of 560 electors and over a hundred party workers.

4 In every municipal election since 1965, there has been a contest in at least one ward between a Progressive and a Conservative.

5 Janosik, Edward, Constituency Labour Parties in Britain (London: Pall Mall Press, 1968).Google Scholar

6 See, for example, Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in England (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 4040,1966–1969), Vol. III, Appendix 7, p. 138.Google Scholar

7 Parkin, F. discussed this thesis in an excellent article ‘Working Class Conservatism’, British Journal of Sociology, XVII (1967), p. 278–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but developed a different argument based on working class culture.

8 For a discussion of this see Goldthorpe, John et al. , The Affluent Worker in the Class Structure (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).Google Scholar

9 Unpublished communication with John Bochel, Department of Politics, University of Dundee.

10 Casstevens, Thomas, ‘Party Theories and British Polities’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, v (1961), p. 391–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar