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The Study of Election Campaigning

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Electoral Strategies and Political Marketing

Part of the book series: Contemporary Political Studies ((CONTPOLSTUD))

Abstract

Election campaigns attract great attention from voters, media and academics alike. The academics, however, tend to focus their research on the electoral result and on societal and long-term political factors influencing that result. The election campaign — the event of great interest, which has at least some role to play in affecting the result — is usually passed over or at most receives minimal attention. It is generally left to the journalists and pundits to give their insights into the campaign; scanning every television programme and newspaper for the latest news or gossip, scrutinising every campaign development — whether an initiative or gaffe — for its potential effect on the result. These are ‘the boys on the bus,’ the campaign journalists who, emulating Theodore White (1961), provide fascinating accounts of the nitty-gritty of election campaigning.1 But such studies emphasise the short-term and the ephemeral, rather than the underlying process to any campaign. They necessarily stress the unique rather than the general and as such promote the view of campaigns and campaigning as behaviour specific to each election, indeed to each party.

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Authors
  1. Shaun Bowler
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  2. David M. Farrell
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of California, USA

    Shaun Bowler (Assistant Professor) (Assistant Professor)

  2. Department of Government, University of Manchester, UK

    David M. Farrell (Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Politics) (Jean Monnet Lecturer in European Politics)

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© 1992 The Macmillan Press Ltd

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Bowler, S., Farrell, D.M. (1992). The Study of Election Campaigning. In: Bowler, S., Farrell, D.M. (eds) Electoral Strategies and Political Marketing. Contemporary Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22411-1_1

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