Bellwether

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This article is about Bellwethers in general. For Connie Willis' book, see Bellwether (novel).

A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings. The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) in order that this animal might lead its flock of sheep.

In sociology, the term is applied in the active sense to a person or group of people who tend to create, influence or set trends.

In politics, the term is more often applied in the passive sense to describe a geographic region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the former region might predict the eventual result in the latter. In a Westminster-style election, for example, a constituency, the control of which tends frequently to change, can mirror in its popular vote the result on a national scale. In the United Kingdom, Basildon is one such constituency, having reflected the overall result in every General Election since its creation in 1974. In the United States, Missouri, often referred to as the Missouri bellwether, is considered such a region, having produced, beginning in 1904, the same outcome as the national results in every presidential election save that of 1956.

The American bellwether states are[1]:

Missouri - 1 miss (1956) from 1904 on, perfect since 1960
Nevada - 1 miss (1976) from 1912 on, perfect since 1980
Tennessee - 1 miss (1960) from 1928 on, perfect since 1964
Delaware - 2 misses (2000,2004) from 1952 on, perfect from 1952-1996

In the stock market, a bellwether is the stock of a company that is regarded as a leader in its given industry—as, for example, IBM in the computer industry—such that the performance of the company may be understood to reflect the extant or predict the future performance of the industry writ large.