Political Parties, Resources and Context: Campaigning in Democratic Regimes

Abstract

This panel is on political party mobilisation, especially on campaigning. A large part of literature in political science recognises campaigning as a multidimensional phenomenon, both in terms of timing, actors (party leaders, candidates, journalists, spin doctors, etc.) and resources (human, financial, technological) involved. However, in-deep analyses on campaigning are rare. How does concretely campaigning? How do different actors compete and how they gather and use their resources? How do count peculiarities of the context (taking in account historical and institutional patterns)? Do parties campaign differently across localities in national campaigns? Campaign features exert their influence beyond the elections, for instance in terms of party strategy. How do politicians interpret their electoral results (e.g. in terms of success or failure) considering expectations arise in campaigning? We would like to link campaigning analyses with the main theoretical concerns in political science, also in a critical way. How do these analyses fit with the evolutionary models (e.g. "pre-modern", "modern", "post-modern" campaigns), often founded on some country-specific patterns (e.g. Americanisation), and with party models debate ("professional-electoral" or "cartel" party etc.). We expect papers on a single election or series of elections, also in a comparative perspective. Our specific interest is on localised campaigning, not necessarily on local elections. We suppose that national elections have also interesting local dimensions. A discussion on conceptual but also methodological tools (surveys, focus groups, ethnographic observation etc.) is welcome.

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