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Paid digital campaigning tools play an increasingly pivotal role in individual election campaigns worldwide. Extant literature often juxtaposes the equalization theory, which argues that these tools create a level playing field, and the normalization theory, which contends that strong and resource-rich politicians benefit most from digital tools. This article aims to inform this debate by looking at it from a campaign expenditure perspective beyond the Anglo-American bias of most research on the subject.

The authors use an original dataset on campaign expenditures and resources of 1,798 candidates running for 13 Belgian parties in the 2019 federal parliamentary election. Relying on multilevel statistical models, the authors link the candidates' digital campaign expenses to their incumbency status, which is expected to affect digital campaigning.

While earlier work on majoritarian cases often showed contradicting results, this study on the Belgian flexible-list proportional representation (PR) case provides strong support for the equalization theory by demonstrating that incumbents are not only less inclined to spend on digital tools than challengers, but also spend a smaller part of their budget on these tools.

This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the equalization versus normalization debate from a campaign expenditure perspective using a made to purpose dataset in a non-Anglo-American context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2021-0679

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate EU election data for the UK and Germany and examine the influence of promotional activity (party campaigning) and the different voting systems prevailing in these two countries – first past the post (FPTP) in the UK and proportional representation (PR) in Germany – on voter turnout.

The paper takes the form of a binomial logistic regression analysis of individual‐level survey data from the European Election Studies (EES) archive.

The findings suggest a general link between electoral systems, party campaigning and voter turnout. Individuals are more likely to turn out under PR systems, while “party campaigning” – including door‐to‐door canvassing and leafleting – also had a substantial positive effect on self‐reported turnout.

The structure of the EES survey questions means that it is impossible to separate out which mode of campaigning (impersonal or face‐to‐face) is driving the observed strong positive relationship between the variable “party campaigning” and voter turnout. More survey research should be carried out to tease out which specific types of promotional activity have more of an influence on voter turnout. In addition, aggregate level research on campaigning patterns across countries with different voting systems would be helpful to explore this phenomenon in more depth.

While research has been undertaken within the context of specific countries such as the UK, USA and New Zealand, there appears to have been no research reported within the context of the EU.

This study sets out to make in‐depth comparisons between major political campaigns in the UK and Taiwan, and generate contemporary insights into the creative development process, the working relationships between campaign managers and professional agencies, and the “spin doctor” phenomenon, all through the eyes of very senior professionals.

Material gathered in “élite interviews” was subjected to interpretive analysis and synthesised with secondary data and the findings of an extensive literature review.

The putative Americanization of political marketing has not been as complete as some authors suggest, but one of its features was an important element in campaign development in both countries: the centrality of the party leader's persona in an image‐building strategy. The culture and history of the party were an important determinant of the style of the campaigns examined. It was generally agreed that political marketing and advertising have been strongly influenced by commercial branding, though important differences remain.

Despite the richness of the data and the authority of the respondents, the small number of willing participants in the study limits the scope for generalisation.

The findings offer usable insights into the creative development process and the nature of client‐agency relationships, in political campaign planning.

The paper contributes the first expert‐insider perspective in published studies and commentaries concerning political marketing literature. It cuts across disciplines of political science, communication, management, marketing and advertising, and may contain lessons for marketing planners in other non‐commercial contexts.

A marketing planning framework to aid political parties in improving their image and co‐ordinating election campaigns has been developed to reflect the changing nature of electoral campaigning in the developed world towards the need for more long‐term planning; together with the development and implementation of marketing models in a wider sphere of social situations. The planning model has been developed using both a hypothetico‐deductive and an inductive approach, incorporating recent developments in US and UK political campaign management and depth interviews with political strategists in the UK. Suggests that national political parties need to co‐ordinate their election campaigns more effectively in order to strengthen their image among key citizen and voter groups by determining which target areas are most in need of resources. Further research is needed to determine how to position the party and to select and place advertising in the relevant media. Concludes that local election campaigns are becoming more co‐ordinated by national parties but that such co‐ordination neglects to provide local area research and telemarketing campaigns, and post‐election analysis exercises to monitor strengths and weaknesses in party strategy and campaign plan implementation.

This study aims to focus on how virtual campaigns are affecting voters in the elections of Kuwait, as well as whether such virtual campaigns will replace traditional campaigns in the post-COVID era.

This qualitative research adopts a purposeful sample when selecting participants from candidates and the managers of electoral campaigns in Kuwait. Fifteen participants were selected, which has been sufficient to achieve data saturation, and then, textual data were collected via semistructured interviews from 15 candidates and the managers of electoral campaigns in Kuwait during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings indicate that candidates preferred using virtual campaigns which enabled them to reach voters during the time of COVID-19’s lockdown. Majority of responses underlined that social media platforms do direct political messages to the voters. Hence, social media platforms should be perceived as preferred medium for communicating with supporters, especially in the post-COVID-19 era. However, some responses uphold the importance of keeping traditional political campaigns due to the peculiar nature of the Kuwaiti community where there is a need for socialization and meeting face-to-face with voters.

This research provides a new evaluation about the role of virtual political campaigns in Kuwait. It highlights the crucial and increasing role of virtual political campaigns in attracting voters; nevertheless, it found that virtual campaigns should be used as addendum to conventional political campaigns in the post-COVID-19 era in Kuwait.

This selective annotated bibliography presents a snapshot of research published between 1990 and 1999 that has studied negative political advertising, primarily in the USA. Political scientists, psychologists, communication theorists and marketing scholars have used experiments, surveys, and case studies to examine the impact of this type of advertising on voter beliefs and behavior. The author categorizes the literature by broad themes such as typologies, effects of negative ads, media coverage of political campaigns, and actual candidate behavior, and provides descriptive annotations of representative articles in each category. In addition, several scholarly books that discuss negative political advertising are annotated. Since the focus of this bibliography is on social science research, articles from the popular literature are not included.

This study examines the impact of gender on Facebook campaign strategies and the reception of these strategies during the 2018 Israeli municipal elections.

The authors analyzed all the messages posted on 48 politicians' official Facebook pages during the week leading up to the elections. They analyzed messages posted by 152 candidates running for the position of head of a municipality, 68 of whom were women (48 had an active Facebook account), examining the amount of engagement they had created. The authors also analyzed the candidates' use of rhetoric and use of negative campaigning and the engagement it created.

Analysis of the overall engagement of Facebook users in respect to men versus women politicians showed that men politicians' posts were significantly more engaging in terms of the number of likes and shares they generated, although the multilevel analysis found no significant differences between engagement in the posts of men and women politicians. The Aristotelian rhetoric analysis revealed no significant differences between women and men contenders; however, in line with the role incongruity theory, the engagement analysis found that male candidates' logic-based posts attracted significantly more shares. The negative campaigning analysis found that, contrary to the study’s hypothesis, female candidates posted twice as many messages, attacking their opponents as their men counterparts. However, in line with the hypothesis based on the role incongruity theory, these posts gained significantly less engagement than those of their men counterparts.

The study highlights that female candidates do not conform to their perceived gender role as soft, emotional, and gentle in their social media campaigning. However, in line with role incongruity theory, they were not rewarded for this “unwomanly” behavior because they gained significantly less engagement with their logic-based posts and their attacks against other candidates than their men counterparts. Despite the fact that prior studies have indicated the potential of social networks service (SNS) to empower women leaders, the findings of the study highlight the continued gender discrimination and the validity of role incongruity theory during social media campaigning, particularly at the municipal elections level.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to look at how the Internet was used by political parties and candidates during the Indian parliamentary elections of 2009.

A total of 31 web sites belonging to political parties and their candidates in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were examined for how they were used to mobilize volunteers and voters. An online questionnaire and in‐depth interviews were administered to the web site coordinators/designers and politicians.

The study found that sites were not used to their maximum potential but instead, merely for publicity, online presence, and to explore the new medium. There was greater reliance by most candidates on traditional media such as rallies and face‐to‐face interaction. The reason may be due to the limited Internet penetration in India, which also means the Internet may have less influence on voters. Some candidates have shown the way to the potential use of the medium for fund raising and recruiting volunteers. But Indian politicians will likely continue to be cautious in using the Internet.

This study was limited to the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat and did not consider the impact or the effectiveness of the Internet.

This is the first such study of the use of web sites for electioneering in India. It also documents the development in the use of the new medium for campaigning in 2009 as compared with the elections of 2004.

The existing debate in the political science literature on the transfer of US campaign expertise to Western Europe is largely based on observations of campaign evolution and, to a limited degree, on surveys of US political consultants. This article attempts to provide a deeper understanding of some of the problems associated with the practical application of US political marketing expertise in European political markets, focussing primarily on the UK. The paper investigates this transfer of US campaign expertise using both a political science‐diffusion perspective and an international marketing‐market entry perspective, suggesting that the two perspectives are mutually reinforcing. Qualitative data were collected from interviews with US political consultants who had consulted to British political parties at the 1997 British general election and with three academics who are renowned researchers in this field. The paper argues that, because of the very different contextual environments and their implications for campaign conduct, the potential for “Americanisation” is limited through indirect export methods. The paper further argues that US political consultants could penetrate the European market for political consulting services through a more customised offering using indirect export methods or a more standardised offering using direct export methods.

This paper explores the process used to communicate public policy in political campaigns. Empirical research has been conducted into determining the voters' consideration of the importance of national political issues and the association of the electorate's consideration of the importance of issues with identification with parties in the UK. This paper attempts to show how political parties can position themselves on the basis of issue stances when targeting groups of voters. A model is suggested to aid in public policy evaluation with implications for positioning; recognising that those parties that formed the previous government have significant advantages over the opposition during the conduct of electoral campaigns since they can make use of the government's communication networks. However, the paper looks at this process from a party‐oriented perspective (where issues are used more to persuade the electorate) rather than a candidate‐centred perspective (where personalities tend to be used more). Thus, further research needs to be conducted in order to ascertain the model's suitability in and adaptability for candidate‐driven political markets.