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Innsbruck 2002 The Role of Political Consultants But underlying this variety there are also some structural trends detectable in all countries studies, narrowing the differences between various campaign styles to a certain degree without resulting in a uniform standardization of campaign practices. Based on data from our Global Political Consultancy Survey I will discuss the perceptions of people professionally involved in and in charge of election campaigns. Starting with an overview of recent changes as identified by campaign experts, I will concentrate on several indicators of professionalization before turning to role definitions and various strategic approaches from a global perspective. The overwhelming majority of political consultants across many regions of the world agree with the statement that the style of election campaigns in their countries has changed during the last few years. Change of Campaign Practices (in %)
The perception of change in the style of election campaigns is most prevalent in East Asia and Russia, where the impact of modernization and democratization has indeed been very strong during recent years. But also in Latin America changes have been registered lately by 90 percent of the political consultants in their countries. The process of change is still noticed by four out of five professional consultants in India, the various countries in East Central Europe and in South Africa. In some of the remaining countries like Belarus, Georgia and the Ukraine only two-thirds of the professionals are aware of changes, which may be due to the generally slower and more difficult pace of adaptation to Western styles and technologies observed in these countries, as well as to the quasi-monopoly of "parties of power" in these transformational democracies. Overall there is one outstanding element of modernization that can be considered revolutionary in most parts of the world: the growing importance of mass media, especially the use of television during campaigns. Secondly, there has been a noticeable increase in professional campaign management, and thirdly, a strong increase in required budgets in order to finance television-driven and survey-based campaigns. The political consultancy business in the USA has already gone far toward establishing most of the criteria essential for an independent profession: a clearly defined market for special services, a clear definition of professional roles in the relationship with clients, a separate professional association, an academic career path, and a codex of professional and ethical guidelines. Associational memberships, written professional standards and ethical guidelines indicate various degrees of professionalization in particular countries or regions. An alternative approach to measuring levels of professionalization concentrates on observing everyday practices of campaign professionals. Which special services are being used? With which external advisors is there any cooperation? The results of our survey among campaign managers and consultants indicate that the overwhelming majority of party managers and political consultants use the services of external experts and advisors. With the exception of East Asian and Indian respondents more than two-thirds of campaign professionals interviewed had recently worked with opinion pollsters and advertising experts. Only about 40 percent of East Asian or Indian campaign experts reported recent cooperation experiences with political pollsters and representatives of advertising corporations. Between 74 to 94 percent of all campaign managers and consultants interviewed agreed about the ongoing professionalization of their candidates. The fact that only one-half of South African campaign experts observed an ongoing professionalization of their respective candidates, should not be misinterpreted as lacking sophistication of South African politicians. This response is due to the fact that South Africa only had its first democratic election in 1994. As a considerable portion of our sub-sample of South African experts works for the ANC, we have to consider that their candidates have been exposed to only two parliamentary election campaigns so far. "Do you see the costs of political campaigns as spiraling up in the upcoming election cycles?"
It is surprising that campaign experts from countries often regarded as laggards in adopting professional modern campaign techniques, like Belarus, Georgia, the Ukraine or India, are expecting significant increases of campaign expenditures in the upcoming election cycles. The situation is contrasted in Russia, where only four out of ten campaign managers expect further growing campaign costs due to already excessive spending practices during recent presidential and parliamentary campaigns. The fact that 89 percent of American consultants interviewed prognosticated a spiraling up of campaign expenditures seems to illustrate an endemic feature of American campaign practices. Considering the worldwide proliferation of modern media technologies and their impact on political communication practices, it might be expected that campaign styles and strategies in the United States, in Scandinavia, Argentina and Japan would become more similar over time. The result would be a pattern of gradual standardization of campaign operations and political communication strategies, where inter-regional differences between campaign styles are diminishing and they are losing their characteristic distinction. Taking a closer look at campaign styles and strategies from a comparative perspective, there is no evidence that the proliferation of modern media technologies led to a homogenization of forms and styles of political communication. In fact, there are signs for an ongoing hybridization of political communication practices mediated by cultural factors and accentuated by specific institutional arrangements. Central results of cluster analyses of role definitions of campaign professionals based on the data of our Global Political Consultancy Survey provide further evidence for a mixture of traditional campaign practices with media and marketing-driven approaches to run election campaigns. Party Driven Sellers concentrate on party-related success factors like a strong and effective party organization, the programmatic policies of their respective parties and, while also stressing the importance of the candidates' personalities, they seem to be primarily party-focused. For Party Driven Sellers the centerpiece of a campaign is the product of party-related factors. They try to sell the policy agenda of their party even when concentrating on the communicative role of their top candidates, who are regarded as party spokesmen, representing and communicating party positions and partisan arguments. In contrast, Message Driven Marketers are more concerned about the strategic positioning of their candidates and developing messages that appeal to the expectations of specific target groups, stressing the importance of the central campaign message. Apparently, Message Driven Marketers are more inclined to define campaigns in terms of political marketing operations, where strategic positioning and targeting are seen as essential prerequisites of professional politics. Message Driven Marketers concentrate more on resources like the availability of campaign funds and tend to evaluate the role of external advisors and campaign consultants as far more important than Party Driven Sellers. These two types of professional role definitions differ also substantially regarding their estimations of party-related campaign factors. Message Driven Marketers seem to be more party distant, doubting the relevance of a strong party organization within the overall campaign operations. The following chart reveals the distribution of these two different styles of professional role definitions within select areas.
A majority of campaign professionals from seven out of ten areas worldwide is following the first type of professional role definition and can be classified as Party Driven Sellers. Operating in different media environments and shaped by different institutional arrangements and cultural traditions, these campaign professionals share a common point of reference: their party-focused approach toward campaign strategy. Among campaign managers from Latin America we found at least a balanced distribution of selling versus marketing approaches. Apparently, one-half of Latin American consultores politico are following a more traditional party-focused approach, while the other half seem to be influenced by the logic of marketing politico when reflecting about essential factors of a campaign. A majority of Russian campaign experts already look at campaigns inspired by imperatives of the political marketing approach. Weak party organizations as well as the programmatic fluidity and concentration on strong leader personalities and a diffuse electoral market lead to a technocratic approach, forming electoral coalitions of disillusioned and detached voters. Yet, American political consultants come closest to the type of Message Driven Marketers. Eighty-five out of 100 American campaign consultants interviewed can be classified as driven by strategic message development based on market segmentation and targeting operations. Comparing the structures of these types, more than 40 percent of respondents classified as Message Driven Marketers are American political consultants, whereas only 5 percent of Party Driven Sellers are from the United States. There is convincing evidence that the focus of modern campaign strategies is shifting away from party to candidate and message related factors. This shift seems to be more pronounced among campaign experts showing a strong orientation toward the US role model of modern campaigning. Respondents belonging to the first cluster can be characterized as Mobilizers. While estimating the influential power of television, their communication strategies focus also on radio and on traditional forms of political advertising like street posters and mass rallies. The second type can be described as Broadcasters. This group of campaign managers is far more television centered, obviously highly attracted by the possibility of reaching a mass audience. In addition, radio and advertisement in daily newspapers are regarded as effective channels to communicate central campaign messages to target voter groups. Broadcasters also rely on traditional forms of political advertising strategies but to a significantly lesser degree than Mobilizers. Generally, Broadcasters tend to evaluate direct mail campaigns as slightly more effective than street posters and mass rallies. The third cluster seems to represent an advanced style of campaign communication. Members of this group can be described as Narrowcasters. While centered on paid television advertising campaigns as the most effective form of campaign communication, they also evaluate targeted communication forms like direct mail as exceptionally important aspects for their advertising strategies. The Internet, as a new medium to communicate with connected voters via e-mail, banner ads and targeted messages, is seen as an enormously powerful campaign tool by Narrowcasters. Traditional advertising channels such as the print media advertising campaigns, large scale street poster campaigns and mass rallies, or campaign meetings to mobilize supporters, seem to be regarded as outdated and as a waste of money and energy.
With the exception of Indian campaign experts, of which two-thirds could be classified as Mobilizers, relying on traditional forms of campaign communication, we found a split distribution of Mobilizers and Broadcasters among Latin American consultores politico, Russian and East European as well as South African campaign managers. The data supply further evidence for a combination of traditional and modern styles of campaign communication in most of the areas studied. East Asian and West European campaign managers differ to a significant degree. Two-thirds of campaign experts from these respective areas could be classified as Broadcasters, appealing to mass audiences and trying to optimize the reach of their campaign messages. Campaign professionals from Australia and New Zealand are also attracted by television, but every fourth of the Australian campaign experts is primarily attracted by the strategy of narrowcasted, targeted messages to carefully selected voter groups. American political consultants represent the most advanced orientation toward strategic political communication. Seven out of 10 respondents classified as Norrowcasters come from the United States, thus indicating professional orientations, which are driven by media and institutional factors characteristic for the hyper-competitive media environment in the United States. Three out of four US consultants interviewed could be classified as Narrowcasters. In confrontation with a multiplicity of news channels, media clutter and diminishing value of expensive advertising campaigns on the major national networks, they shifted their focus in the direction of narrowcasted advertising campaigns on local cable networks, targeted direct mail operations and the Internet. Approaching our findings from a political marketing perspective, we can also try to connect these distinct orientations toward political communication with their presumptive operational role definitions. Accordingly, Mobilizers should deal with campaign primarily from an organizational perspective. In fact, more than 70 percent of Mobilizers have been classified as Party-Driven Sellers, relying on party-related factors and strong party organizations as mobilization platforms when planning a campaign strategy. Broadcasters, on the other hand, should be approaching campaigns from an advertising perspective, more focusing on policy and candidate centered factors. Testing this assumption, we found that more than two-thirds of Broadcasters could be also classified as Party-Focused Message ore Image Marketers. Finally, Narrowcasters should be classified by a customizing approach toward campaigns, developing the central campaign message according to demands, needs and expectations of targeted groups of voters operating in a party distant mode. Actually, 70 percent of Narrowcasters have been also classified as Party-Distant Message Marketers. Apparently, there is a strong intercorrelation between the evaluation of media effectiveness in strategic terms and general operational role definitions of campaign professionals. Having illustrated select area- and culture-specific campaign styles, I will approach one of the core questions of our worldwide analysis: how do campaign professionals evaluate critical factors of successful campaigning in their respective countries? Before investigating strategic beliefs of campaign experts, I will start taking a closer look at the most important factors in a political campaign today as seen by campaign practitioners from different countries and areas, dealing first with professional evaluations of American campaign consultants. In their view the sheer amount of available financial resources seems to be the far most important factor related to a political campaign. Six out of ten US-consultants interviewed stressed the importance of campaign budgets and fundraising activities, indicating their keen awareness of money-driven campaign practices, which are characteristic for the American style of campaigning today. The second factor most frequently mentioned is related to communication strategy. One-third of the American consultants interviewed referred to strategic message development, carefully targeted messages and strict message discipline as the decisive factors of a campaign. While money and message-related factors seem to represent major concerns of American consultants, West European campaign managers concentrate on communication strategy, message development and the implementation of strategy within daily campaign operations. They consider candidate-related factors like image and credibility of the top candidate as far more important factors than their American colleagues. Available campaign funds seem to be a minor problem for West European campaign managers, while campaign professionals from Eastern Europe are very concerned about the availability of financial resources. East Asian campaign managers concentrate on the importance of political connections as the decisive factor for a campaign. Roughly one-half of our respondents from Japan, Taiwan and South Korea mentioned personal connections and cooperation with networks of supporter groups as most important factors, while also considering campaign funds and party-related factors essential when running a political campaign. From the viewpoint of Indian party officials, local issues and local cultures seem to shape the conduct of campaigns in a distinct way. But also election and finance laws, which impose severe restrictions on campaign practices and party image are regarded as crucial factors of campaigns in India. South African campaign experts concentrate on the effective use of electronic media (especially radio), the personality of candidates and available financial resources when defining the most important factors of electioneering in their country. USA Western Europe Latin America East Central Europe Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) East Asia India South Africa Source: Global Political Consultancy Survey (1998-2000). Resuming central findings of our analysis discussed in detail in our book on "Global Political Campaigning" leads to the following conclusions: First, a comparison of professional styles of campaign experts provides no evidence for a standardization of campaign practices worldwide. Thus globalization of campaigning does not lead to an outright Americanization of campaign styles. Second, we found a variety of distinct professional approaches to campaign strategies shaped by cultural, institutional and regulatory factors resulting in a pattern of strategic divergence among campaign professionals Third, there is nevertheless some evidence for an operational consensus of campaign professionals regarding technological and financial resources seen as indispensable for effective campaign practices as well as an agreement on the need of more programs and specialized training courses for the next generation of political consultants who will operate in more complex multi-media environments where traditional campaign media like street posters and mass rallies will be replaced by web campaigns, sophisticated Internet-portals, targeted E-mail campaigns and professionally crafted political marketing operations |
