Britain

In Britain’s first-past-the-post (FPTP) system—an exclusively single-seat-district system—every member of the House of Commons is elected in a unique geographically defined single-seat district. The FPTP system thus maximizes the importance of the geographic location of votes to party seat maximization. Yet as a single-tier system with no intraparty competition, it also promotes reliance on the expertise model, as the party seeks to emphasize its national policy reputation. Given the crucial role of districting in such a system, a party is expected to trade off reliance on the expertise model in order to deploy its personnel to Select Committees as a means to maximize the party’s chances of holding marginal (swing) districts. The findings show that the expertise model holds more strongly for the Conservative Party, and more weakly for the Labour Party, with the reverse pattern holding for the electoral–constituency model. Both parties show a high tendency toward issue ownership.