Campaigns are said to take place at the national level, driven by leaders and consultants. This centralisation is the result of an evolution. The local, short and inexpensive premodern campaigns of the nineteenth century are over. In the 1960s, television and consultants have introduced modernity through longer campaigns, more expensive and highly centralized. Finally, Information and Communication Technology symbolizes postmodern era with targeted and professional campaigns. This overview does not capture the complexity of campaigns and the overlapping of political spaces; it hides the regional diversity of electoral mobilizations. Local mobilizations have raised interests, essentially in relation to their effects on polls or taken as an archetype of the campaigns. Rare are the studies on the encapsulation of campaigns. This paper aims at understanding the diversity of campaigning by considering resources, constraints and strategies of the candidates. In France and in Great Britain the electoral systems enable us to discuss the evolutionary model. Parliamentary elections take place in constituencies; thus, the national campaign is composed of premodern, modern and postmodern local campaigns. Moreover the territorialised French political competition is said more and more nationalized du to the importance of the presidential election. The British General elections, lead by highly centralized political parties, are said more and more regionalised. Both countries offer a dynamic perspective of the encapsulation of political spaces. The paper is based on a selection of around fifty significant configurations. It studies constituency candidates of the French Socialist Party and Union for a Popular Movement as well as the British Labour party and the Conservative party in marginal and safe seats. Materials are qualitative, mixing parties’ archives, official expenditure reports, and interviews with candidates. It analyses the selection of candidates, their leaflets, and their techniques to understand the trails of campaigns.
