Where you lead we will follow: a longitudinal study of strategic political communication in election campaigning

Abstract

AbstractThe ways in which election campaigns are planned, organized, and conducted have changed considerably during recent decades, and political parties constantly employ new ideas and practices in order to communicate as strategically and effectively as possible. The concept of strategic political communication refers to an organization's purposeful management of information and communication to achieve certain political goals. In this article, we focus on the role of the individual political party in developing election campaigning. The empirical material covers the 2002, 2006, and 2010 Swedish national election campaigns and illustrates how political parties lead and follow each other in the development of strategic political communication. By exploring party agency, this article contributes to the understanding of how ideas and practices of strategic political communication emerge and develop over time in election campaigning.