David Denver, Gordon Hands, Justin Fisher and lain MacAllister, "Constituency Campaigning in Britain 1992-2001: Centralization and Modernization," Party Politics, 9 (September 2003), 541-59.

First Paragraph:
For most of the period after 1945, electioneering in Britain was dominated by the national campaign. Constituency campaigning continued, of course, focusing in particular on polling day mobilization, but it was widely regarded as little more than a sideshow and left to local enthusiasts to organize and run. The increasing importance of television led the parties and the national media (and academics) to direct their attention almost entirely to the national campaign and appeared to sound the death knell for local campaigning. In the 1990s, however, there was a marked change. Technological developments significantly improved the tools available for fighting local campaigns and central party staff -- partly influenced by their observation and experience of campaigning in the USA -- began to take constituency campaigning much more seriously. In parallel, a significant academic literature began to emerge, tracing the changes that were taking place and reassessing the impact of constituency campaigns on election outcomes (see, e.g., Denver and Hands, 1997; Pattie et al., 1995; Whiteley and Seyd, 1994).

Figures and Tables:
Table 1: Aspects of traditional campaigning--all parties
Table 2: Aspects of modern campaigning--all parties
Table 3: Mean number of campaign/polling day workers per constituency
Table 4: Traditional aspects of constituency campaigning
Table 5: Innovations in constituency campaigning: computers, direct mail, and telephone campaigning
Table 6: Mean campaign intensity index scores, 1992-2001
Table 7: Constituency campaign intensity and party performance, 1992-2001

Second Paragraph:
Prior to the 1990s, the parties operated a sort of de facto division of labour with respect to campaigning. Central headquarters largely concentrated on the persuasive elements of campaigning and communicated with the electorate via the national campaign and the mass media. Mobilization -- actually getting supporters to the polls -- was the task of activists in the constituencies. As we have seen, party headquarters have now come to play a much larger part in the mobilization process and in doing so have introduced new strategies and techniques to constituency campaigning. Moreover, the distinction between persuasion and mobilization has become even more blurred than it used to be. Campaign efforts in the constituencies now involve much more than simply identifying supporters during the short campaign and getting them out to vote on polling day. Rather, the long-term constituency campaign aims to 'build relationships' with voters, identifying their concerns, tailoring messages to their needs and keeping them supplied with relevant information. The electoral payoff from all of this activity is not huge, but it is nonetheless significant and could be vital in a close race. Constituency campaigns -- at least in seats targeted by the parties -- are no longer the 'Cinderellas' of general election campaigns and that is a change that is unlikely to be reversed in the near future.