The Policy Opinions of British Political Activists.

This article employs the October 1974 British Election Study to examine the level and nature of political ideology among British political activists, the effects of socioeconomic characteristics on these attitudes, and the impact of the attitudes on political behaviour. On balance, the activist group closely resembles the non activist population. Activists are somewhat more ideological in their thinking than non- activists, but the differences are quite small. Demographic attributes affect the policy attitudes of the elite slightly more than the non activists, but again differences are small. The influence of issue attitudes on voting is about the same for activists and non activists. These results stand in contrast to studies showing large élite-mass policy differences in the United States and other work documenting ideological orientations in higher levels of the Labour Party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]