Abstract:Given the vast amounts of research on party competition, party strategy, political communication and electoral campaigning, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to the study of national party elites' perceptions of voters and public opinion. This article argues that the mindset of leading party officials, and more specifically their perceptions of voter and public opinion rationality, driving forces and knowledge, is a much‐neglected explanation for why parties adopt the electoral strategies they do.… Show more
“…Campaign strategies and tactics may matter and in some cases be perceived as important but not as important as the substance of politics or the political leadership. In this respect, the results support research that emphasizes the importance of core political factors when explaining election outcomes, and fit with previous research on party elites' perceptions (Ekengren and Oscarsson, ).…”
Section: Results: the Importance Of Campaign Strategies And Tacticssupporting
confidence: 88%
“…Otherwise, it would be difficult for them to develop their strategies for winning elections and to use scarce resources effectively. As noted by Ekengren and Oscarsson (: 1), the perceptions of party elites are ‘essential for explaining the strategic actions taken by party elites.’ For example, if party elites believe that most voters base their voting decision on the parties' ideological values, they are likely to emphasize their ideological values in their campaign communication. If, on the other hand, they believe that most voters base their voting decision on the party leader, they are likely to develop campaign strategies emphasizing the party leader and his or her competence and trustworthiness.…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Despite this, there is virtually no research on party elites and their perceptions or working theories of voting behavior. The only exception is a couple of studies by Ekengren and Oscarsson (), based on internal documents from the two major Swedish parties, the Social Democratic party and the Conservative party, between 1964 and 1991. These studies suggest that both parties tend to perceive voters as mainly coherent and predictable, driven by overall rather stable predispositions, and as generally speaking well‐informed and interested in politics.…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
confidence: 99%
“…These studies suggest that both parties tend to perceive voters as mainly coherent and predictable, driven by overall rather stable predispositions, and as generally speaking well‐informed and interested in politics. Furthermore, in these respects, no major changes across time could be discerned, except that the media are perceived to have become more important across time (Ekengren and Oscarsson, : 17–20).…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
“…Campaign strategies and tactics may matter and in some cases be perceived as important but not as important as the substance of politics or the political leadership. In this respect, the results support research that emphasizes the importance of core political factors when explaining election outcomes, and fit with previous research on party elites' perceptions (Ekengren and Oscarsson, ).…”
Section: Results: the Importance Of Campaign Strategies And Tacticssupporting
confidence: 88%
“…Otherwise, it would be difficult for them to develop their strategies for winning elections and to use scarce resources effectively. As noted by Ekengren and Oscarsson (: 1), the perceptions of party elites are ‘essential for explaining the strategic actions taken by party elites.’ For example, if party elites believe that most voters base their voting decision on the parties' ideological values, they are likely to emphasize their ideological values in their campaign communication. If, on the other hand, they believe that most voters base their voting decision on the party leader, they are likely to develop campaign strategies emphasizing the party leader and his or her competence and trustworthiness.…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Despite this, there is virtually no research on party elites and their perceptions or working theories of voting behavior. The only exception is a couple of studies by Ekengren and Oscarsson (), based on internal documents from the two major Swedish parties, the Social Democratic party and the Conservative party, between 1964 and 1991. These studies suggest that both parties tend to perceive voters as mainly coherent and predictable, driven by overall rather stable predispositions, and as generally speaking well‐informed and interested in politics.…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
confidence: 99%
“…These studies suggest that both parties tend to perceive voters as mainly coherent and predictable, driven by overall rather stable predispositions, and as generally speaking well‐informed and interested in politics. Furthermore, in these respects, no major changes across time could be discerned, except that the media are perceived to have become more important across time (Ekengren and Oscarsson, : 17–20).…”
Section: What Matters When People Decide Which Party To Vote Formentioning
“…Otherwise, they risk being viewed as unresponsive to the wishes of the public and out of touch with what the citizens want, with negative electoral consequences. This dynamic is reinforced when party elites have positive views of the rationality of public opinion (as is the case in Sweden), which increases the likelihood that they consider the public's wishes (Ekengren & Oscarsson ).…”
Section: The Hypothesized Effects Of Public Support and Media Advocacmentioning
While extensive literatures study the responsiveness of policy to public opinion and the influence of interest groups, few studies look at both factors simultaneously. This article offers an analysis of the influence of media advocacy and public opinion on political attention and policy change for four regulatory issues over a relatively long period of time in Sweden. The data pools together measures of public support for specific policies with new data on attention to the policy issues in the Swedish parliament, policy developments over time and detailed coding of the claims of interest advocates in two major Swedish newspapers. Analyzing this data, a complex picture without a general tendency for either public opinion or media advocacy to act as dominant forces in producing policy change is revealed, although some evidence is found that the public is successful in stimulating political attention when it supports policy proposals aimed at changing the status quo.
The digital platform has deeply changed the electoral campaigns, producing a consequent evolution of political consulting. Social networks have become the mainstream media so that the digital strategist and the big data analysts have achieved a special place in the "war room," next to the campaign director and the pollster. In 2012, Obama's election has marked the entrance in the "Fast Politics": resulting, on one hand, in 24 hours news, a large amount of auto-generated contents produced by the voters through digital media, fragmentation, instantaneous transmission of messages and, on the other hand, a reduction of the attention threshold. Once again, similarly to the past, the evolution of the media (2.0) ends up changing the nature of election campaigns and political consulting request. What happens in Europe? The objective is to carry out a comparative analysis on the professionalization of candidates' electoral staff. We wanted to verify if the American model has been imported in Europe with special focus on the techniques and the style of election campaigns management. In particular, within a comparative approach among the European states, the study analyzed the usage of political consulting and the degree of "digitalization" during last general elections: an ancillary practice or, on the contrary, a new tool for consensus? The comparative analysis among European states exploited the data provided by Comparative Candidates Survey (CCS 2013) and constructed synthetic indexes on the professionalization and digitization campaigns, conducting a quantitative and qualitative analysis.
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