| dc.description.abstract | One might anticipate, therefore, that the more professional campaigning is, the more it will be possible to demonstrate clear lines from general theoretical principles to practice. Further, the more professional U.S. campaigns are in this sense, the more ‘scientific’ their campaigning knowledge, the more likely they are to offer exportable models and to present a picture of the future of the rest of the democratic world.
The investigation into the sources of campaigners’ ideas should shed some light on the extent of professionalization of campaigning knowledge. It also leads us into other surprisingly under-explored territory, despite the recent upsurge of academic interest in campaigns. Most attention has focused on the ‘what’ questions of campaigns: what are campaigners doing, and with what consequences for political conduct, voter information and involvement, political discourse, leadership and democracy in general. There has been much less attention to the ‘why’ questions, except in rather particular terms, to explain strategies and tactics in specific campaigns, or retrospectively to apply theoretical models (e.g., rational choice, marketing theory) to explain campaign processes. There has been no systematic inquiry into the sources of the ideas which lie behind campaigning strategy, and thus little knowledge of the theoretical influences which are played out in practice.
The purpose here is to examine why campaigners behave as they do, by means of an investigation into the ideas and influences which underpin campaigners’ thinking. In itself this may help us in the difficult process of separating out effects of media change from changes in campaigning practice. It may help correct the tendency of many accounts, almost by default, to over emphasize the force of technology and, especially, television in the transformation of political communication. The media/campaign nexus is clearly central but it is only part of the key to understanding modern campaigning. Equally crucial are perceptions of relationship between the party/candidate and the voters; that is to say, campaigners operate on the basis of views of the electorate, ideas about persuasion and the winning of elections which fundamentally shape their exploitation of the communication technologies. | en_US |
