Who Were the Rebels? Dissent in the House of Commons, 1970-1974.

Three hypotheses have been put forward in past research to explain the reduced extent of party cohesion observed in British parliamentary divisions after 1970. One of these, the "new breed" hypothesis, associates the change with a generation effect. Another, the "poor leadership" hypothesis, associates it with mismanagement of the Conservative party by Edward Heath. A third hypothesis links the dissension to a change in parliamentary rules. This paper looks more closely at the nature and correlates of dissent in the parliamentary parties during the early 1970s and conclusively discredits the "new breed" hypothesis. in neither party is there any evidence of a generational effect in rebellious voting. Nevertheless, this finding does not really support either of the other hypotheses, since the rise in dissent predicates the period associated with change in parliamentary rules and the correlates of dissent are found to be the same in both parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]