Individualised Constituency Campaigns in Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: Candidates in the 2005 German Elections

Abstract

Constituency campaigns are im portant phenomena fo r students o f political parties, voting behaviour as well as p o litica l communication. These research communities perceive constituency campaigns as p a rts o f centralised high-tech campaigns aiming in strategic ways a t the efficient m obilisation o f voters. We propose in this paper an alternative understanding o f constituency campaigns using the case o f the German parliam entary elections in 2005 to em pirically test this understanding. We perceive constituency campaigns as phenom ena signalling a relative independence o f individual candidates fro m the national p a r ty cam paign. We label this phenomenon individualised campaigning. We argue th at individualised campaigning is driven among others by electoral incentives. W e test this hypothesis with regard to the German mixed-member electoral system and on the basis o f a survey o f all candidates standing fo r election in 2005. Two Different Perspectives on Constituency Campaigns Election campaigns are traditionally multilevel. One level is national and it is populated by political celebrities standing as front runners for their parties. Their primary means of communication are the mass media, political advertisements and large-scale political rallies. A second campaign level is local. It is mostly populated by quite average citizens running on a party list or for a direct mandate in a local constituency. They meet their potential voters face-to-face on m arket squares, through visits to companies, at social events, or simply through knocking on their front doors. This paper is about the relationship between these two levels in the German parliamentary election o f 2005 and on the way the country's mixed-member voting system patterns this relationship.

Campaign Individualisation before and after the Bailout: A Comparison between Greece and Portugal

“…Inspired by Zittel and Gschwend (2008), we selected as dependent variables three different dimensions of the individualisation of campaigns: the communicative focus of the campaign (parties versus candidates, varying between zero, 'Campaign is aimed to attract as much attention as possible to the party' , and ten, 'Campaign is aimed to attract as much attention as possible to the candidate'), the campaign agenda (a dummy variable depicting the inclusion of issues that are relevant to the constituency in the campaign) and the campaign means (varying between zero, 'no personal resources or strategies used' , and seven, 'several personal resources or strategies used').…”

“…19, No. 4, 541-559, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2014 have shown (Zittel & Gschwend 2008;Karlsen & Skogerbø 2013), these two components are not necessarily related to each other and can vary separately.…”

“…Zittel and Gschwend (2008) have described this phenomenon through the concept of 'individualised campaigns', which means that candidates seek a personal vote on the basis of a candidate-centred organisation, candidate-centred campaign agenda and candidate-centred means of campaigning. Karlsen and Skogerbø (2013), on the other hand, distinguish between two dimensions: the communicative focus and the organisational strategy.…”

“…According to Zittel and Gschwend (2008), this is the 'normative' component of candidate individualisation, which should complement the analysis of the objective dimension: that is, the use of personal political communication tools. Following these authors, we add a third dimension: the raising of local and specific issues by candidates.…”

“…In terms of the former, incumbents are more likely to have more resources at their disposal than first-time prospective candidates (Zittel & Gschwend 2008). Empirical studies also show that gender has a significant impact on the style of candidate campaign, men being more prone to personalise their own campaigns than women (Karlsen & Skogerbø 2013).…”