Multilevel models for repeated binary outcomes: attitudes and voting over the electoral cycle

The electoral cycle has become an established feature of voting behaviour, both in Britain and in other European countries. After an initial `honeymoon' between the new Government and the electorate, disillusion often sets in and Government popularityÐwhether measured by opinion polls, by-elections or mid-term elections such as the European and local electionsÐ tends to decline. In most cases, there is then some recovery in the Government's standing in the run-up to the next general election (Miller et al., 1986; Miller and Mackie, 1973; Reif, 1984; Stray and Silver, 1983). During the 1987±1992 British Parliament, for example, the Conservative Government lost seven by-elections but subsequently won all back at the 1992 general election. Although the Conservatives were much less successful in 1997 than they had been in 1992, their result in the 1997 general election marked a recovery from their lowest point in the electoral cycle at the time of the 1995 local elections. There are various possible explanations for this pattern. One is that voters make their midterm decisions on rather di€erent criteria from those that they use at a general election. Thus, in the mid-term, votes at a by-election or at the European election are unlikely to lead to a change in the Government. Voters may on these occasions communicate their dissatisfaction rather than wish to change the Government. This point may hold with even more force for mid-term opinion polls. As Miller and Mackie (1973) suggest, an explanation for the cyclical pattern of Government popularity in opinion polls may be that