Political Marketing: a Comparative Perspective

AS conventional political participation and strong party loyalties decline, parties and politicians are trying harder than ever before to woo the electorate. Some scholars regard new techniques of persuasion as heralding the rise of post-ideological, market-oriented parties. That thesis is tested in ten international case studies in Lilleker and Lees-Marshment's new volume. This review raises some critical questions about both the thesis and the findings. In her work dating back to the 2001 British general election, Jennifer Lees-Marshment has argued that the motives and techniques of political-party campaigning have changed and can be categorised in three ways. Firstly, she refers to product-oriented parties (POPs), which pursue campaigns based upon the propagation of their political convictions. As she puts it, ‘This type of party refuses to change its ideas or product, even if it fails to gain electoral or membership support’ (p. 8) What she seems to have in mind here is something close to what political sociologists call a sect. Scholars who have studied political (as distinguished from religious) sects, such as Sighele 1 and Toch 2 have characterised political sects as possessing ‘a private sense of reality’ 3 and a resistance to the pragmatic compromises and accommodations of traditional political parties. 4 According to Lees-Marshment, POPs are political parties, but it is hard to think of an example of one. In Chapter 6, Sean McGough gives the example of Sinn Fein, suggesting that it has moved in the period since the 1980s from being a POP to being a sales-oriented party (SOP). However, upon closer scrutiny, he seems to be suggesting (quite correctly, it seems to me) that, rather than a simple change of marketing strategy, Sinn Fein's evolution in the past quarter of a century has entailed a transition from being something other than a democratic political party (‘the political voice of terrorism’) to a conventional, electioneering party working within the democratic process (p. 99). We need to know more about the identity of POPs before we can regard them as more than an ideal-type—or straw man.