American Campaign Techniques Worldwide

Abstract

The ongoing process of professionalization and internationalization of electioneering and campaign practices in media-centered democracies is the central topic of this comparative study. Only recently have scholars in the United States begun to study the professional norms and standards of a new power elite: the professional political consultants. Prominent figures of the U.S. political consultancy business have worked as overseas consultants since the 1970s. In the 1980s, they concentrated on Latin America and Western Europe. Since 1989, Russia and the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe, as well as newly democratized countries in Asia and Africa, have become competitive marketplaces for American overseas consultants. Between 1998 and 1999, a sample of 502 political consultants and leading party managers in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Latin America, Western Europe, Russia, and Eastern Europe were interviewed about their professional experience and their concepts of campaigning, with the main focus on their professional evaluation of various campaign techniques and communication strategies. This article deals with the market-driven proliferation of American campaign techniques from a global perspective.