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This paper investigates the fit between the strategic posture of a political party and its political market orientation, and analyses the impact of this fit on party performance. For this purpose, a configuration theory logic is applied to the context of the political market; in particular, we develop strategic profiles (i.e. strategic postures and political market orientation) of four Belgian political parties represented in the Flemish Parliament. By comparing the strategic profiles derived from a questionnaire administered to 3148 party members , we and then relate this misfit to party performance. Results indicate that there is a strong, negative relationship between the misalignment of actual and perceived strategic profiles on the one hand, and performance on the other. H sture of a party. Thus, our findingsshow that it is not so much the strategic posture itself which will determine superior performance, but it is the strategic posture that the party aligns with implementing a particular political market orientation that is the most important factor.

aDResearch ESIC Nº 4 Vol 4 · Segundo semestre, julio-diciembre 2011 · Págs. 64 a 79This article investigates the role of personality perception by voters in their impression of political suitability.What are the personality traits of political leaders whose perception contributes most to the electorate's impression of their political suitability? This study relies upon the central political psychology axiom that political structures are shaped and channeled by people's personalities (Winter, 2003). This axiom implies that personality factors both at the elite (leaders) and the mass level (the electorate) are believed to influence the arousal and weighting of the leaders' goals and preferences. It also follows from this axiom that the personality of the political candidate is considerably affecting how the candidate (at elite level) and how the citizens-electors (at mass level) respond or resist to cues, symbols and signs. Besides, studies on leadership from organizational research and management understated the role played by the personality in "charisma" ever since Weber (1922Weber ( , 1968 launched the concept ("charismatic authority"). This "charisma" of the political leader would nevertheless only be activated in relation to the audience (e.g. Hoffman, 2009, p.232-233).This article focuses on the assumption that the voter-audience is considered to be influenced, even steered by central-so-called politically relevant-personality impressions about the candidate. The article firstly presents a theory review on the role of personality in political success. Secondly, a method is presented that allows assessing personality as a success factor, and which is entitled "the political personality index" (e.g.De Landtsheer, Thijssen & Immelman, 2004;De Vries, 2007). A third, empirical part of the article summarizes the results of the application of the "the political personality index" on a sample with 1171 individuals. From the results can be concluded that a substantial part of the impression of political suitability is based on the perception of the candidate's personal "charisma". The interpretation of the presumed politically relevant personality patterns as furthered by this political psychology approach further indicates that contextual factors deserve more attention.Este artículo investiga el papel de la percepción de la personalidad por parte de los votantes en su impresión acerca de la idoneidad política de los candidatos. ¿Cuáles son los puntos en la personalidad de los líderes polí-ticos cuya percepción contribuye en mayor medida a la impresión del electorado sobre su idoneidad política?Este estudio se basa en el axioma de la psicología política central que defiende que las estructuras políticas toman forma y se canalizan por medio de la personalidad de cada individuo (Winter, 2003). Dicho axioma implica la creencia de que los factores de personalidad tanto en la élite (los líderes) como a nivel de la masa (el electorado) influencian la manera en la que surgen y toman importancia los objetivos y preferencias...

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Social media, and Twitter in particular, are playing an increasing role in the day-to-day activities of politicians (Weber Shandwick, 2014). Before the digital revolution, the relationship between the politician and the voter was intermediated by journalists and broadcast media. In contrast to traditional media, social media are presumed to enable politicians to engage directly with the electorate (Kruikemeier, Van Noort, Vliegenthart & De Vreese, 2015). In the last decade, there was a growing interest in the role of social media in election campaigns, triggered by Barack Obama’s electoral presidential election victory in 2008 and more recently by Donald Trumps’ triumph in 2016 (Rodriguez-Andres, 2018). The research presented in this article answers three main questions. First, who are the politicians using Twitter for campaigning purposes and what variables can predict Twitter use? Second, when do Belgian politicians use it and with which frequency? And third: do tweeting politicians perform better at the ballot box? The main findings reveal that a Flemish candidate has a higher probability of 18,7% to be present on Twitter compared to a candidate from the French community. Another important finding is that there is no significant association between the number of tweets and number of preferential votes, although a trend towards significance was observed for Flemish politicians.

The relevance of candidate image research as an element of political impression management has been scrutinized and contested, as it has been the case for candidate image research in many other scientific domains. For decades the emphasis of political science research was on more conventional topics such as the influences of political ideology, the impact of political rhetoric, the role of political structures and institutions. Nevertheless, with the birth of mass media and maybe even more so with the more recent introduction of social media, the emergence of a predominant visual culture has put candidate image at the centre of political impression formation processes. The managing of political impressions deserves particular attention and profound research. In this article we present an overview of relevant theories and research linked to candidate image within political impression management. The article will firstly discuss how the trend towards perception politics emerged and will revisit the role of perceptions and the formation of politically relevant impressions. Secondly, this article will focus on the politically suitable appearance and the concept of candidate image as an important part of both offline and online political impression management.

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