This collection of essays by a group of young political historians presents a fresh approach to the study of electoral behaviour and political parties in nineteenth and twentieth-century Britain. The volume challenges the common view that political parties have been the passive beneficiaries of social and constitutional change and examines the contested ways in which parties and voters have interacted since 1820.

Each chapter is an important contribution in its own right, but taken together they offer an original survey of the workings of the electorate and the party system in Britain since the 1820s. This book will be of interest to undergraduates and specialists, historians and political scientists alike.