A method for finding patterns of party support and electoral change: An analysis of British general and Finnish municipal elections

First we provide a classification of the electoral outcomes in the 1992, 1997 and 2001 parliamentary elections in the constituencies of Great Britain in terms of the relative support of the main parties. Then we analyze the over-time stability of the competitive settings in various constituencies. Next we solve the same problem for seven most recent Finnish municipal elections. It turns out that only very few classes are needed to characterize the average patterns of support distribution. Our main finding is that out of thousands of conceivable over-time trends only few are needed to characterize the support development in both countries.