Web Campaigning Across Space: The Role of Context in the Development of Online Electioneering

This paper will examine the role of national context in shaping the development of web campaigning over time. In particular it will argue that web campaigning has evolved through four key phases - experimentation, standardization, community-building and mobilization - and seek to identify the main institutional, cultural and societal drivers of that process of evolution. Drawing on the extant literature a we will specify a contextual model of e-campaigning that will then be empirically investigated using a range of macro level data as well as individual comparative survey data (CSES Wave 4) and indepth case studies of four countries - the UK, the U.S., France and Australia. While we will be interested in comparing overall rates of web campaiging across countries, the main goal will be identify the socio-structural factors promoting its strategic application to voter mobilization and GOTV efforts by parties and candidates.