Planning the Political Intervention: Electoral Campaigns

Abstract

In this chapter, we build from the five-stage process for developing political strategy introduced in Chap. 5, and adapt it to take you through the process of planning an electoral campaign. Electoral campaigns are those that focus on convincing voters to cast their ballot for or against a particular candidate or issue. They “represent the core of representative democracy” (Rackaway, 21st century political science: A reference handbook. Sage, 2011). In fact, “the quality of a democratic society can be easily linked to the quality of its election campaigns” (para 1).

The five-stage process outlined in this chapter is most relevant to domains 1, 4, and 5, specifically to strategies involving increasing voter registration, working on campaigns or running for office, seeking passage or defeat of ballot initiatives or referenda, and educating voters and underrepresented groups about policy issues that are part of electoral campaigns. As a quick review, these five stages are as follows:

• 1. Determining the specific purpose of the electoral campaign.

• 2. Assessing the internal (organizational) and external (environmental) context for the electoral campaign.

• 3. Identifying the campaign’s long-term, intermediate, and short-term goals.

• 4. Selecting specific targets for the electoral campaign.

• 5. Identifying and selecting the tactics the campaign will use.