The relative electoral impact of central party co-ordination and size of party membership at constituency level Justin Fisher a, , David Denver b , Gordon Hands b a Division of Politics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK b Department of Politics & International Relations, Lancaster University, UK Abstract Over the past decade, clear evidence has been produced showing that effective constituenc ing in British general elections can lead to better electoral performance. This evidence has cha received wisdom that only national campaigning is significant and that efforts at local level are less rituals. Denver et al. have focused on the role of the national parties in strengthening loca in target seats; Seyd and Whiteley, by contrast, have stressed the importance of local party me This article attempts to assess the relative electoral impact of national party co-ordination and party membership and suggests that the impact of these two factors varies by party. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Constituency campaigning; Elections; Party members; Party centralization; Britain 1. Introduction Over the past decade, the role and impact of constituency campaigning in British ge tions have been fundamentally re-assessed. Three different teams of researchers (for ferred to as: Seyd and Whiteley; Johnston and Pattie; Denver and Hands), using three methodologies, have arrived at broadly similar conclusions e effective local campaigning in Corresponding author. E-mail address: justin.fisher@brunel.ac.uk (J. Fisher). 0261-3794/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2005.10.001 Electoral Studies 25 (2006) 664e676 www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud