Political marketing management and
theories of democracy
Stephan C. Henneberg
Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK
Margaret Scammell
London School of Economics, UK
Nicholas J. O’Shaughnessy
Queen Mary, University of London, UK
Abstract. Political marketing management is often criticized for devaluing democratic
processes. However, no literature exists which outlines different concepts of democracies
and systematically juxtaposes them with political marketing management in its
varied conceptual and practical facets. In this article, we outline three different perspectives,
i.e. a selling-oriented, an instrumentally-oriented, and a relational political
marketing management, and analyse their compatibility with two different concepts
of democracy, specifically competitive elitism and deliberative democracy. We discuss
implications of political marketing vis-à-vis the theory of democracy as well as necessary
further research. We find that while certain political marketing management
perspectives are associated with different theories of democracy, the current normal
paradigm of marketing theory shows the least overlap with democratic theories. Key
Words
•competitive elitism
•democracy
•participatory democracy
•political
marketing
Uneasy partners: Political marketing and politics
Political marketing means many things to many people. In general, it is a term
more often used in academia and practice in Europe than in the US (Scammell,
1999). The distinction between political marketing, political management or
political communication is not always clear and is often obscured by overlapping
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Volume 9(2): 165–188
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DOI: 10.1177/1470593109103060
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interpretations. However, what is clear is that political marketing often evokes
negative feelings and is assumed to be harmful for politics and democratic systems
(Dermody and Scullion, 2001, 2003; Moloney and Colmer, 2001; Lilleker, 2005).
The use of marketing instruments in politics is argued to imply atrophy and
aberration. Henneberg (2004) has collected and catalogued some of these criticisms
by political scientists as well as by marketing theorists; while political scientists
mostly focus on ethical aspects of political marketing management practice,
e.g. questioning the use of political marketing instruments during election campaigning,
marketing theorists are concerned with more theoretical shortcomings
in the theory of political marketing. Especially, the lack of a clear and consistent
position of political marketing vis-à-vis political practice on the one hand and
democratic fundamentals on the other are discussed as shortcomings that hold
back the research area of political marketing (O’Shaughnessy, 2002; Henneberg
and O’Shaughnessy, 2007).
In general, the merging of the two worlds of marketing and politics, perceived
to be that of the trivial and superficial in contrast to the spiritual and substantial,
to paraphrase Werner Sombart (1915), provokes profound anxiety. At its most
extreme, the fear is for politics itself, transformed from what should rightly be a
quest for a common vision of the just, noble and good into the private and often
irrational whimsy of consumerism. Political marketing, it is argued, encourages
voters to judge politicians in terms of the selfish rewards of consumer purchase
(Qualter, 1991; Bauman, 2005); equally it may undermine the courage necessary
for political leadership (Klein, 2006). However, on the other hand political marketing
has been discussed in a more positive light; e.g. Bannon (2005), Johansen
(2005), or Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy (2009) argue that a relationshipbuilding
approach of political marketing could well provide a basis for more
meaningful interactions between voters and political institutions. Furthermore,
political marketing should not be judged against ideal and impossible standards of
a perfectly informed, knowledgeable and participating electorate, but rather
against the real world of relatively low interest and knowledge in politics. This
‘realist’ strand of research claims that marketing of some sort may be valuable,
even essential, for promoting voter interest and involvement (Popkin, 1991;
Wring, 1997; Corner, 2003; Scammell, 2003).
However, as O’Shaughnessy (1990) put it, ‘The answer to the ethical question
[regarding political marketing] depends on the views of democracy we hold’
(1990: 6). Therefore, we posit that a critique of political marketing management
needs to be underpinned by a clear understanding of the conceptual complexity of
the phenomenon in question as well as by a rigorous analysis of the yardstick that
is employed. Existing literature in political marketing and political science does
not engage with the epistemological foundations of political marketing management
but remains concerned with specific applications and tools (Wring, 1997;
Henneberg, 2008). We therefore attempt to fill a gap in the literature which
hitherto has hindered further conceptual development of the area of political
marketing as well as cross-disciplinary interactions between marketing theory and
political science. Our contribution is based on a discussion of different aspects of
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political marketing management vis-à-vis key concepts of democracy in order to
provide a rich and rigorous juxtaposition of the compatibility or incompatibility
between them.
Specifically, we are interested in whether the current ‘dominant paradigm’ of
(political) marketing management is commensurable with theories of democracy.
What we will not attempt is an in-depth discussion of ethical issues – i.e. axiomatic
philosophical judgements – associated with this juxtaposition (Hunt and Vittell,
1986; Laczniak and Murphy, 2006; Nill and Schibrowsky, 2007).
We will structure our argument as follows: to specify and motivate our research,
in the next section we will briefly discuss the status of political marketing management
with regard to politics. Following on, an analysis of the characteristics of three
distinct concepts of political marketing management will be introduced, derived
from theoretical vantage points. Two different normative concepts of democracy
will subsequently enable a juxtaposition of political marketing management on the
one hand and democratic theories on the other, exemplified in a categorization
scheme. In a concluding section we will synthesize our findings and their consequences,
and discuss implications for research in the area of political marketing.
The ‘status’ of political marketing management in politics
Political marketing as an academic discipline ‘works’ on two levels: first, it consists
of explanatory constructs for political marketing management activities as
employed by political actors in practice; second, it represents an exchange-based
research lens to explain the political sphere per se (Henneberg and
O’Shaughnessy, 2007; Henneberg, 2008). However, research in this area also
ought to be concerned with the general ‘fit’ of the concepts of political marketing
management in relation to the research phenomenon in question (Lock and
Harris, 1996; Egan, 1999; Scammell, 1999). More specifically, political marketing
research needs to be concerned with issues of democracy in general and its commensurability
with political marketing management and its underlying concepts,
such as voter-orientation or market-orientation (O’Cass, 1996, 2001; LeesMarshment,
2001; Newman, 2002; Ormrod, 2007).
This goes beyond more specific questions regarding the applicability of political
marketing activities, such as whether it is ethical to focus only on ‘floating voters’ in
a targeted election strategy (Baines et al., 2002; Lilleker, 2005). The point of
departure of this argument is the fundamental question regarding the integrity of
political marketing management (O’Shaughnessy, 2002). When posing the
question in this way, there is somehow not enough clarity regarding the constructs
concerned: what do we mean by ‘democracy’, and what exactly is ‘political marketing
management’ in this context? Thus, this question quickly disintegrates into
more complex sub-questions once the two main components are scrutinized.
Political marketing management and its theoretical and conceptual foundations,
following marketing theory, are not monolithic blocs of unambiguous definitions,
clear aims and aligned activities, but comprise many different ‘schools’ (Hunt,
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1976, 1983; Sheth et al., 1988; Wilkie and Moore, 2003). Below, we focus on three
distinct concepts of a marketing orientation in politics, which span the space of
possible options: a ‘selling-oriented’ concept of political marketing management;
an ‘instrument-mix-oriented’ concept; and a ‘relationship-building’ concept that
is also informed by societal marketing considerations. Thus, the initial conceptual
question about the relationship of political marketing and democracy needs to be
related to each of these concepts of political marketing management.
Moving to the second core component, that of democracy, it is equally clear that
conceptually this too is a contested and fragmented construct (Cunningham,
2002). To judge the ‘affinity’ of political marketing management against a democratic
‘yardstick’, one needs to consider which of the many expressions and
principles of democracy are used, e.g. are we talking about the ideals of deliberative
democracy or the norms of ‘realist’ models? Again, for the purpose of our subsequent
argument, we will focus on two different schools of democracy to
illustrate our points: the ‘competitive elitist’ approach, and the ‘deliberative’ concept
of democracy.
Our analysis is therefore grounded in two parsimonious categorization schemes
(one of political marketing management concepts, and one of theories of democracies)
and their interrelations (Hunt, 1983). Such juxtaposing analysis will allow
us to provide a discussion of political marketing management not just on an ‘activity’
level but on a conceptual and therefore more general level. Furthermore, it also
provides alternative benchmarks through the explicit use of a set of normative ‘versions’
of democracy (Scammell, 1999; Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007).
Concepts of political marketing management
Political marketing management (PMM) provides a theoretical umbrella for different
applications of marketing concepts within the political sphere. No singular
approach to PMM exists, in line with the multi-faceted nature of commercial
schools of marketing. Sheth et al., in 1988, identified twelve different schools
of marketing. Many of them are inspired by social exchange theory, microeconomical
theory, or institutional political economy (Alderson and Martin,
1965; Hunt, 1976, 1983; Arndt, 1983; Pandya and Dholakia, 1992; Hyman, 2004).
However, since then, several other conceptual schools of commercial marketing
have come to the forefront of academic research or practical application: for
example relational marketing, or a network marketing approach for organizational
interactions (Andersen et al., 1994; Parvatiyar and Sheth, 2001; Shaw and Jones,
2005). Although marketing theory is dominated by the ‘instrumental’ or ‘managerial’
school as the normal paradigm, it has been questioned whether the managerial
school of marketing is in line with the richness of the social exchange theory
underlying marketing thought (Grönroos, 1994, 2000). Furthermore, it has been
argued that it is incommensurable with pivotal marketing concepts like customerorientation,
that it is simplistic and that it is merely a pedagogic tool (Easton and
Araujo, 1994; O’Malley and Patterson, 1998; Grönroos, 2006).
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As in the case of marketing theory, a similar variety of approaches exist in PMM.
This is represented in the extant literature by analyses of communication-based
campaigning approaches (e.g. Harris et al., 2005; O’Shaughnessy, 1990, 2005;
Newman, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2002; Kavanagh, 1995; Scammell, 1996; Wring, 2002),
by strategic positioning approaches (e.g. Butler and Collins, 1996; Baines, 1999;
Lees-Marshment, 2001; Henneberg, 2006), or by concepts based on the organizational
attitudes and behaviours in their relationship with external and internal
political stakeholders (e.g. O’Cass, 2001; Ormrod, 2007). However, only a few
categorization attempts exist that provide a comparison of different political
marketing management approaches, e.g. Lees-Marshment’s (2001) conceptualization
of product, sales and market(ing)-oriented parties.
For a juxtaposition of political marketing management and democratic theory,
we have to be precise about the characteristics of PMM as represented by different,
often incompatible, concepts. We select and define three distinct schools of PMM
that cover the spectrum and richness of marketing approaches to politics:
• selling-oriented PMM
• instrumentally-oriented PMM
• relational PMM.
These approaches have been chosen because they exemplify ideal types of orientations,
because they are based on state-of-the-art research discussions, and because
they constitute the dominating paradigmata for research and practice in this area.
The selling-oriented PMM is most often equated with a traditional, ideologyoriented
approach to politics (Kavanagh, 1995; Henneberg, 2002). The political
offering, i.e. the policy promises, and the electoral and campaign activities are
derived from solid political convictions, often characterized by an alignment with
certain interests within dominant or social cleavages, such as race, ethnicity and
region (Lipset and Rokkan, 1966). A ‘market-leading’ perspective and a predominantly
tactical use of political marketing instruments characterize this approach
(Henneberg, 2006). A selling-oriented PMM is often seen as the ‘first age’ of political
marketing, exemplified by the use of party political broadcasts, slogans,
posters, and (in America) the 30-second spot replacing the rally and the speaker
meeting (O’Shaughnessy, 1990, 2005). It has been argued that this meant that
political management mattered more than political marketing (Wring, 2005).
Examples of a selling-oriented PMM are now often found in primary-issue parties,
typically Green parties or regional parties, such as Plaid Cymru. The German
Green party campaigns offer an illustrative example, focussing on policies which
are derived from a belief in environmental sustainability, while at the same time
using selected political marketing instruments (Blühdorn and Szarka, 2004).
The instrumentally-oriented PMM can be characterized as the ‘normal paradigm’
of current research in political marketing. A sophisticated and managerial
use of political marketing activities and strategies is employed to convince voters
of the value of the political offering, adapt the offering to target segment preferences,
and implement political marketing campaigns effectively and efficiently
through the co-ordinated use of a multitude of political marketing instruments
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(Lees-Marshment, 2001; Wring, 2005). This is in line with ‘market-led’ approaches
of strategic marketing (Slater and Narver, 1998, 1999), or a ‘following’ mentality
as a radical interpretation of a voter-orientation (Henneberg, 2006). Tony
Blair’s first UK General Election campaign represents an example of such ‘focus
group’-driven campaigning (Wring, 2006). An instrumental approach can mean a
focus on short-term expediency with emphasis on responding to tracking polls
and public opinions. Instrumentally-oriented PMM describes an amalgam of
techniques and a formulaic approach to the implementation of the marketing
concept (Johansen, 2005).
Recently, a relational approach to PMM has been advocated (Bannon, 2005;
Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2009). This is inspired by societal marketing considerations
(Ward and Lewandowska, 2006; Kang and James, 2007), which have
also been advocated in the political sphere (Henneberg, 2002; Newman, 2002).
The emphasis is on long-term exchange interactions that benefit all relevant actors
as well as society (i.e. direct as well as indirect stakeholder interests are considered)
(Laczniak and Murphy, 2006). Value considerations are linked to an acknowledgement
of the (inter)dependency of all involved exchange partners and are
therefore grounded in mutual benefits as well as societal needs, based on delivering
on promises, i.e. a voter-inclusive approach to policy implementation
(Johansen, 2005).
To make the relational approach to PMM operational, however, it has to go
beyond the cosmetic and the superficial (such as the silver wedding card from
President Bush recently received by the family of one of the authors). The current
London mayoral campaign is evidence of how far relationship-oriented political
marketing is being advanced. Emails and text messages, social networking sites
and YouTube have all been used extensively by the candidates. For example, Ken
Livingstone’s team offered sympathetic bloggers special information and interviews
with their candidate: his focus was on personality cult, with no mention of
party, only candidate, as well as personalized letters to all Londoners. The
candidates had some success in building relationships: a YouTube video of
Conservative candidate Boris Johnson received more than a million hits, and his
campaign created an online supporters network called Team Boris, with more
than 9000 members. This enabled the campaign to ensure crowds wherever their
candidate appeared, organised via Facebook, Twitter or text message (BBC News
website, Brian Wheeler, 16 April 2008). While none of this really amounts to
Political Relationship Marketing in any finished sense, and it may be seen as
fostering the illusion of participation, it nevertheless establishes a trajectory along
which we are being driven towards relational interactions in politics.
To juxtapose these three distinct approaches, some pivotal characteristics are
selected which emphasize the essence of the different PMM concepts. These dimensions
are used to describe typical and therefore to some extent generic aspects,
and cover elements of the strategy on which the specific PMM is based, the envisaged
characteristics of the underlying political exchanges and the specific activity
patterns associated with the relevant PMM (see Table 1). In the following discussion,
we will focus particularly on the differences between these schools of PMM.
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With regard to the strategic dimensions the three PMM rationales differ: while a
selling-oriented approach is offering-focused, i.e. puts an ideology or conviction
first, instrumentally-oriented PMM is focused on a deep understanding of
primary stakeholders, specifically target voters’ needs and wants. A relational
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Table 1
Schools of political marketing management
Selling-oriented Instrumentally- Relational
PMM oriented PMM PMM
Strategy Rationale of Offering Voter needs Voter and
Dimensions PMM (ideology) societal needs
Target segment(s) Cleavage group Floating voters Core and periphery
voters
Targeting strategy Undifferentiated Differentiated Differentiated/micro
Importance of Peripheral; Central; Central; strategic
PMM for party/ tactical activity tactical/strategic policy development/
candidates management activity implementation;
management strategic/tactical
activity management
Exchange Interaction One-way Mediated Dialogue
Dimensions Value construct one-way
Conviction-based Needs-based Mediated
promises promises needs-based
promises
Temporal Short-term, Short-term, Long-term,
orientation electoral electoral electoral and
governmental
Activity Main PMM Communication Communication Policy and value
Dimensions activity Channel strategy
management development
Offering Promises
development implementation
Activity Micro-activity
co-ordination management
Intelligence Managing in
management relationships
Main instruments Push marketing Push and pull Relationship building
instruments marketing instruments
instruments
Campaign Election Election; Election
orientation Resource- Government
generation Resource generation
Implementation
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approach enhances this perspective in line with a wider societal orientation which
also incorporates the interests of stakeholders who are not direct exchange partners
and assesses the trade-offs between short-term and long-term effects. While
this implies a differentiated targeting approach covering core and peripheral
actors, the instrumentally-oriented PMM focuses pragmatically on those decisive
voter segments which need to be convinced in order to achieve the organizational
aims, i.e. main target segments are ‘floating or indecisive voters’, or ‘swing seats’.
An undifferentiated targeting of voters who are aligned with the core offering is to
be expected for selling-oriented political organizations. Consequently, these
political actors use PMM as a peripheral and tactical tool of politics, while PMM is
central for the two other approaches, specifically for the relational political
marketing management concept which perceives marketing strategy as the guiding
principle of offering creation and stakeholder interaction, as well as service
delivery in politics (Smith and Hirst, 2001; Henneberg, 2006).
The exchange dimensions of PMM are concerned with what kind of interaction
is facilitated by the specific approach, on what aspects value considerations are
based and what time perspective underpins the different approaches. For a sellingoriented
PMM approach, a uni-directional and episode-based exchange, focusing
on election campaigns, is characteristic. This is in line with a conviction-based
definition of exchange value components. An instrumentally-oriented PMM
shows some similarities. However, the underlying exchange value concept derives
its content from the current needs of specific groups of voters or the general prevailing
public opinion. On the other hand, the relational PMM concept stresses
the long-term perspective, including also other interaction processes besides
elections, such as governing and policy implementation as part of societal interactions.
A dialogue with changing agenda-setting functions between different
interaction partners is envisaged, with a societally-mediated value concept as its
foundation (Newman, 1994, 1999; Scammell, 1999).
Relational political marketing management is based on a comprehensive and
‘permanent’ (i.e. continuously ongoing) portfolio of marketing activities, including
policy development, communication, implementation, and long-term relationship
and stakeholder management. This contrasts with the more limited
activity dimension set of the other two approaches: while the instrumental PMM
orientation focuses specifically on communication, intelligence gathering and
market-based policy development, a selling-oriented PMM predominantly uses
communication activities, specifically deployed in a push-marketing setting for
election campaigns (Bannon, 2005; Johansen, 2005).
Concepts of democracy
The previous discussion has outlined the differences between three approaches of
using marketing for the management of a political organization. We are concerned
now with how these approaches intersect theoretically with democracy. ‘Democracy’,
in practice and theory, does not exist as a single universally agreed model
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(Lijphart, 1984). Held’s (1996) influential categorization identified six broad
groups of democracy (including direct, Republican, elitist, New Left participatory
and New Right democracies); concepts which differ with respect to emphasis on
core ideas of participation, liberty, equality, leadership and the democratic
process. For reasons of clarity and parsimony, we focus here on only two. This will
enable us to shed conceptual light on the relative importance of political marketing
management, and to assess how the demands of democracy are met or threatened
by the three particular approaches of political marketing management
outlined above.
We concentrate on the following conceptions of democracy:
• competitive elitism (particularly as expounded by Joseph Schumpeter)
• deliberative democracy (particularly as introduced by Jürgen Habermas)
These conceptions cover widely different normative beliefs about the essence of
democracy and how democracy ought to function. Each arises out of particular
intellectual traditions and spawns its own set of internal arguments, which we
acknowledge but cannot encompass here (for discussions, see Held, 1996). The
prime reasons for our selection are that these two conceptions represent the broad
spectrum of contemporary debate in democratic theory. Competitive elitism, by
common consent, has been an extraordinarily influential model in western democratic
theory (Scammell, 2000). Its insistent realism, critics would say pessimism,
has provided the touchstone for arguments about the nature of democracy for
more than fifty years. Modern theories of participatory democracy emerged in
part as a reaction against competitive elitism; of the various versions of participatory
democracy, deliberative democracy is the most influential in political communication
research. Habermas’s idea of the public sphere is a core concept of
deliberative democracy, ‘ballooned into the new God-term’ of critical analysis
over the course of the 1990’s (Gitlin, 1998: 168).
Competitive elitism
The conception of democratic competitive elitism is based on elite theory, which
has an impressive heritage in political thought, from Plato’s The Republic,
Machiavelli’s The Prince, through to the early 20th century ‘Italian school’ descendants,
notably Mosca, Pareto, and Michels (Blaug and Schwarzmantel, 2001). Its
most durable claim is the inevitable stratification of society between rulers and the
ruled. Elite theory is often disliked because of its profound pessimism about
democratic possibilities, and rejection of the grander liberal and socialist ideals of
freedom, equality, popular sovereignty and the realization of human potential.
The elitists’ answer relies on ‘realism’: history and social science demonstrate the
presence of a ruling class in all political organisms (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987).
Furthermore, recognition of this unavoidable fact is essential for the establishment
of the normatively desirable, namely that governing should be in the hands of
those most fit to rule. Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (originally
published in 1943) remains the most influential account of democratic elitism.
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Schumpeter begins from a rejection of what he calls the ‘classical doctrine of
democracy’, in which elected representatives realize the common good by carrying
out the will of the people. His chief criticisms centre on ‘the will of the people’ and
the ‘common good’: he argued that the classics had overestimated the possibilities
of both. There was no such thing as the common good to which all people could
agree by force of rational argument. Questions of principle were irreconcilable
‘because ultimate values and our conceptions of what life and society should be
and are beyond mere logic’ (Schumpeter, 1943: 251). He also disparaged the very
idea of the will of the people: if it was to command respect, it required a level of
knowledge and rational ability in individual human beings that simply did not
exist among the masses. In reality the will of the people was little more than ‘. . . an
indeterminate bundle of vague impulses loosely playing about given slogans and
mistaken impressions’ (p. 253).
Schumpeter reverses the order of classical liberal theory in which the people
elect representatives who then give effect to the will of the people. The role of the
people is to produce a government that takes it upon itself to establish the common
good. Democracy becomes an arrangement for arriving at political decisions,
in which leaders acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle
for people’s votes. Democracy, in short, is reduced to a method for the periodic
and peaceful transfer of government between two or more groups of leaders. The
most that can be expected of democracy is that it may choose the most competent
leaders and provide mechanisms for controlling their excesses. According to
Schumpeter this greatly improves the theory of the democratic process, emphasizing
the importance of leadership, which was neglected in classic theory. It states
also that the method of competition for leadership is crucial to democracy: the
process must be generally accepted as fair, if not perfect. Schumpeter’s durability
resides primarily in two factors: first, the considerable body of evidence which
continues to show that despite apparent improvements in education, large
minorities of the population (about one third in the USA) have little interest in or
knowledge of politics (Bennett, 1988; Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996). Second, he
compels attention to the quality of the electoral systems and processes. As Shapiro
(2002) notes, theorists are often discomforted by the competitive elitist tendency
to reduce democracy to procedures, yet these are vital for structuring power
relations and limiting interference with individual and/or group pursuit of their
versions of the good life. Norris’s (2004) study of some three dozen parliamentary
and presidential elections concurs: the detail of ‘electoral systems may appear
unduly technical and dry’ but matter significantly for ‘basic issues of political
representation and accountability, for patterns of participation and party competition,
and for the effective health of democratic institutions around the world’
(p. 264). To juxtapose this democratic perspective with a diametrically opposed
conception, the main characteristics are summarized in Table 2.
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Participatory/deliberative democracy
Contrasting with this view, deliberative democracy emerged as a distinctive strand
of the New Left backlash against Schumpeter’s pessimistic portrait of democratic
possibilities. Led by Pateman’s (1970) seminal work, the New Left argued that the
Schumpeter-influenced ‘contemporary model’ of liberal democracy was excessively
afraid of the dangers of popular active participation. While expressing some
concern with voter apathy, they offered no account for it, and instead located the
major threat to modern democracy in ‘mediocrity and the danger that it might
destroy its own leaders’ (Pateman, 1970: 10–11). Pateman argued that the
Schumpeterian legacy had abandoned a central democratic tenet: the insistence on
participation. For the New Left, the concept of participation is clearly differentiated
from the far more limited pluralist concerns to increase voter engagement
with politics. Pateman argues that the pluralists’ concern is essentially with stability:
that is, participation is necessary only to the extent that it is sufficient to ensure
the legitimacy and stability of the democratic system as a whole. For participationists,
however, participation is itself a goal. Democratic politics, properly conceived,
is about the self-development of citizens, fostering concern for collective
problems and enabling the development of an active and knowledgeable citizenry.
Participationists dispute the ‘realist’ assumptions of elite theory; they accept
that the actual levels of knowledge and participation are low, but dispute that
they must always be low, and that such low levels are compatible with genuine
democracy.
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Table 2
Schools of theories of democracy
Competitive elitism democracy Deliberative/participatory democracy
Starting point Structure of a stratified society Changeable structure
Political preference incompatibility Unified will of people exists/can exist
Context Limited voter knowledge/interest Voter rationality/knowledge can be
in politics created
Political instability
Focus Process/method focus to produce ‘Gestalt’ perspective on political
government and imbue legitimacy discourse framework
Sovereignty of the people realised
through deliberation in the public
sphere
Main instruments Political leadership by elite Communication and dialogue by public
(healthy public sphere)
Outcomes Competent leadership Political participation by citizens
Legitimate/fair process Knowledgeable citizenry
Stability
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The stress on participation as deliberative communication or dialogue is the
main contribution of deliberative democracy. Deliberative democracy represents
an ‘exciting development in political theory’ (Bohman and Rehg, 1997: ix): it
reclaims the classic idea that democratic government should embody the will of
the people. In essence legitimate lawmaking results in this view from the public
deliberation of citizens. It rejects Schumpeter’s view that there is no such thing as
a common will, and that the public is not capable of rationality. On the contrary,
deliberative theorists argue that democratic legitimacy depends precisely on a
rational consensus of public opinion (see Table 2).
Habermas’s conception of deliberative democracy, inspired by Rousseau’s
republicanism, is the best known of these theories (Calhoun, 1992). For Habermas,
citizen status should mean more than the protection of private rights and periodical
voting opportunities. It demands a commitment to democratic processes that
ensures that people are the authors of the laws that govern them: in short, a healthy
public sphere with a ‘guarantee of an inclusive opinion- and will-formation in
which free and equal citizens reach an understanding on which goals and norms lie
in the equal interest of all’ (Habermas, 1996: 22).
Habermas’s version of deliberative democracy, i.e. a public in continuous,
rational, deliberation about its own governance, has had a huge impact on political
communication scholarship (Scammell, 2000). This is not surprising because,
unusually for democratic theory, it places communication (via Habermas’s conception
of the public sphere) at its core. Its power stems both from its critique of
the failures of existing democratic practice, characterized by declining participation
and increasing public dissatisfaction with the formal institutions of politics,
and from its sheer optimism that, given conducive conditions, a genuine mass
participatory democracy is possible. Barber’s (2003) Strong Democracy with its
menu of initiatives to encourage public debate, is arguably the most important
practically-oriented intervention in favour of deliberative democracy. Barber
contrasts his model of strong democracy to what he calls the ‘thin’ democracy of
Schumpeter-influenced liberalism, which actively encourages little or no participation
from citizens between formal elections.
Relationships between PMM and democracy
It now remains to be seen how the three distinct concepts of political marketing
management relate to the two selected theories of democracy. The following
provides a juxtaposition of them (progressing from a discussion of the selling orientation,
followed by instrumental and finally relational orientation) to facilitate
an assessment of their relationship vis-a-vis each other, with specific focus on the
current ‘normal paradigm’ of PMM, i.e. the instrumental school.
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Political marketing management and competitive elitism
Schumpeter is often considered the theoretical forerunner of political marketing,
although as often as not he is cited without any acknowledgement of the elitist
underpinnings of his ideas (O’Shaughnessy, 1990). His attraction for political
marketing scholars is that he is among the first and most important political
theorists to argue that elections were analogous to sales in commercial markets
(Street, 2003). The need for political salesmanship stemmed both from the logic of
competition and from the passive and largely uninterested state of the electorate
which needed mobilizing into voting. The economic logic of markets demands
that producers compete to sell their wares; the reality of uninterested voters
demands that politicians find ways to attract attention and mobilize support.
Thus, famously for Schumpeter, what he called the ‘psycho-technics’ of electioneering
(advertising, slogans, rallies, stirring music and suchlike) were not corruptions
of democratic politics, but were essential if the process was to work at all.
Conceptually, Schumpeter’s approach fits closely to the selling-oriented model
of political marketing as outlined above. In both approaches the offer is essentially
top-down, designed according to ‘producer’ convictions and then ‘sold’ through
tactical use of marketing instruments. Schumpeter’s view reflected the mid-war
period of ideologically polarized political choice, class and social bloc-based politics
and limited affluence and consumer choice. The selling model of marketing
was effectively the only one available for mass markets (Lees-Marshment, 2001;
Henneberg, 2002).
However, it is clear that competitive elitism must be less comfortable with
tenets of what we call instrumentally-oriented political marketing. It is precisely a
concern of modern competitive elite theorists that populist demands of massmediated
democracy have potentially destructive effects upon political leadership
(Scammell, 2000). While a voter-oriented follower mentality may be hailed as
bringing in more consultative democratic aspects (Lilleker, 2005), pressures of
media and the proliferating opinion polls on virtually all aspects of our lives effectively
squeeze the discretionary power of leaders to set the political agenda. Gergen
(2000), a White House adviser to Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, notes the
escalation of poll-led politics:
All modern presidents have polled heavily – Haldeman [for Nixon] put three different pollsters
in the field at a time and secretly paid for a fourth to keep an eye on the others – but no one
before Clinton has taken a poll to determine whether he should tell the truth publicly (the
Lewinsky case) or to use American ground troops (Kosovo). (p. 331)
Clinton, Gergen reports, spent nearly ten times as much on polling in his first year
in office as his predecessor spent in two years.
The great concern of modern elitists is that political marketing (understood as
instrumentally-oriented) encourages a shift in criteria for selection of candidates
for office, away from intra-organizational success and competence towards
media-centric qualities of personality, likeability and attractiveness. Instrumental
marketing may be seen as an understandable response to increasing media power,
but nonetheless it ratchets up the threats to leadership; as image comes to domiPolitical
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nate, competent but media-awkward candidates are sidelined in favour of celebrity
and the political offer is increasingly cautious, determined by the results of polls
and focus groups. The shoe-horning of politicians into poll-driven strategic
moulds has been a recurring complaint of commentators who witness politicians
turning into on-message robots day after day. Klein (2006) denounces political
marketing consultants precisely for draining the authentic, human qualities out of
the politicians they serve: ‘They’ve put democracy in a Styrofoam cage. And the
politicians – who tend to see caution as an aphrodisiac – have gone along’ (p. 240).
Thus, instrumental political marketing may ultimately harm democracy by fostering
weak and follower-type leaders, or, just as damagingly, a politics devoid of
the idea of common interest altogether. Leaders, in the classic Schumpeterian formulation,
should take it upon themselves to determine the common interest. Yet
instrumental political marketing segments electorates and concentrates resources
on the targets and niches required for victory (Smith and Hirst, 2001; Lilleker,
2005; Rees and Gardner, 2005). This may lead, as in the hands of a strategic marketer
as effective as Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s infamous architect, to a politics
of national polarization. Worse still, instrumental political marketing revives
traditional fears about the depth of attachment to democratic ideals among ordinary
citizens and their vulnerability to skilful manipulation. The people’s choice
might well be for ‘the politics of demagogic xenophobia, as witnessed by popular
support for radical right-wing movements in contemporary Europe’ (Blaug and
Schwartzmantel, 2001: 261).
With regard to relational PMM, competitive elitism also shows some concerns.
These are derived from the involvement of citizens not so much in the process of
democracy but also in the content of the offering of creation and delivery, i.e. the
fundamentals of policy development and implementation. Modern competitive
elitists are not convinced that deliberation produces ‘better’ democracy, in the sense
of fostering consensus on fundamental conceptions of the common good. As
Shapiro (2002) argues, ‘there is no obvious reason to think that deliberation will
bring people together’ (p. 238). Moreover, even if deliberative consensus were
achievable, it is not necessarily desirable and may lead to the suppression of difference:
‘the competition of ideas – argument rather than deliberation’ is the vital
ingredient of democratic liberty (Shapiro, 2002: 239). Thus, to the extent that
relationships and interdependencies preclude competition they will not foster
liberty. It is arguable that relational PMM is inherently problematic for a democratic
orientation focusing on the need for meritocratic leaders to derive clear and decisive
actions out of incompatible preferences. Furthermore, the theory of political
elitism is sceptical that meaningful relationships with citizens based on political
interactions are realistic. Even by increasing the numbers of citizens who are interested
and informed, and therefore interested in political relationships, the majority,
or certainly a large minority, will (want to) stay ignorant and potentially easily
manipulated. Democratic elitism’s main concern is therefore with the role of leadership
(specifically that it must be protected and safeguarded) as well as the political
competitive process (it must be fair, open and designed to produce the best leaders).
Neither aspect is self-evidently a main concern of relationship-oriented PMM.
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PMM and deliberative democracy
Authentic public deliberation requires spaces protected from manipulation and
self-interested promotion in which citizens may engage as equals in discussion of
matters of common concern. It is not so much that political salesmanship should
not exist, rather that it should not displace or dominate the discussion of private
individuals coming together to form the public. However, it is arguable as to
whether such an un-manipulated ideal public sphere ever has existed or ever could
exist (Schudson, 1995). Nonetheless it is the driving concern of deliberative
democrats to increase protected spaces for citizen-to-citizen communication
through, for example neighbourhood assemblies, televised town halls and mediated
civic communications initiatives (Barber, 2003). It would seem clear that a selling-oriented
PMM, as a vehicle for one-sided, uni-directional rhetoric, may be a
threat to deliberative ideals; it offers at best competitive debate, which, while
essential for electoral politics, is corrupting if it dominates the public sphere. After
all, the ideal public sphere is precisely the place where private citizens create public
opinion and hold critical authority over their governments and would-be leaders.
Proponents of deliberative democracy must also be deeply suspicious of the
dominant current practice exemplified by instrumental PMM. Their concerns are
the mirror image of the competitive elitists’ anxiety. Where the latter’s prime fear
is for weak leadership, the former’s is for a populist democracy that effectively
bypasses public deliberation altogether. Polls and focus groups express opinion of
sorts, but that opinion may be anything: a reflex, a prejudice, even a totally invented
view. Polls have no necessary correspondence to thoughtful, considered opinion
(Frankovich, 2005). The danger of politics that follows polls, focus groups and
casually expressed voter opinions is that it may in the context of a deliberative
democracy compound prejudice, elevate it to policy and neglect the fora of truly
public deliberated opinion. The clever and unprincipled power-seeker may ride to
office on waves of prejudice, and as such s/he will not be the meritocratic leader
that competitive elitism seeks, but neither will s/he necessarily be weak, and all the
worse for democracy if strong.
Of the marketing models discussed here it would seem that only the relationship-oriented
model based on a societal orientation has any potential for compatibility
with the ideal construct of a deliberative democracy. This derives from the
model’s insistence on the maintenance of relationships with real people, rather
than a purely poll-driven assessment of preferences (Johansen, 2005; Henneberg
and O’Shaughnessy, 2009). Relationship marketing inherently invites dialogue,
even if not necessarily the ideal deliberation of the public sphere. It emphasizes the
need to pay attention to the core (supporters and members) as well the periphery
of target floating voters and other societal stakeholders, and thus provides incentives
to develop political interest and engagement on an enduring basis. A truly
deliberative democrat (but also a convinced political relationship marketer) must
look with scepticism at the proliferating claims of parties to be ‘listening’. The ‘Big
Conversation’, which Tony Blair launched in 2003 claiming it was the biggest
consultation exercise ever with voters, is now largely forgotten, and was quickly
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dismissed as a gimmick. However, the political drive for increased connection
with voters does present opportunities for mechanisms of relationship building.
Trippi’s (2004) heralded open-source campaign for Howard Dean in 2004 (the
‘Blog for America’ campaign enabled citizens to place any message without
censorship, and enlist to volunteer or to donate, with 40,000 people per day visiting
this site) was high-risk and ultimately short-lived, but remains a high-profile
and influential model of reciprocity between a candidate and supporters (Trayner,
2006). A polity constructed as part of on-going relationship building, e.g. using
regular referenda, citizens’ juries, or electronically-enabled interactions, could
bring forth a genre of political marketing which focuses on the goals of information,
persuasion and reciprocity, rather than attack and defence. The positive
aspects of dis-intermediarization which are attributed to such e-enabled PMM
would overlap with requirements of a deliberative democratic setting (Collins and
Butler, 2003).
It is likely that the proponents of deliberative democracy have not fully grasped
how flexible political marketing can be, and how effective it can become when
used as a tool to counteract elitist hegemony. Political marketing management
is not just confined to party campaigns. Marketing techniques, concepts and
methodologies are being increasingly adopted by pressure groups such as the ‘Stop
the War Coalition’ in the UK. While the first big demonstration to be held against
the Iraq war in 2003 was a mass of discordant images, an anarchy of amateur
poster designs with the total effect of confusion, the more recent demonstrations
have become almost corporate in tone. This is exemplified by hordes of individual
demonstrators carrying the posters designed by David Gentleman with a unitary,
cohesive anti-war brand symbolism (spots of bright red ink on a white background
with the black slogan ‘Stop the War’). If a complete critique is to be
developed of schools of PMM, it must be recognized that it is no longer the exclusive
monopoly of elite groups such as parties, and that in the age of the internet
even the powerless can turn to marketing.
However, it may be that competitive elitism is the more useful of the two democratic
theories to political marketing theory. Its emphasis on the competitive
nature of the struggle of votes regards marketing as essential to the democratic
process, and not an alien import. Its concern with process directs attention to the
need for incentives and disincentives to practise a democratically more wholesome
political marketing. It tells us that the rules matter. Commercial marketing has
been persuaded to take societal issues seriously, through a mixture of enlightened
self interest and externally imposed regulation. Political marketing theory and
practice should follow suit.
Summary, conclusions and implications
The relationship between PMM and democracy encompasses the important issue
of how to ensure that in liberal democracies the ‘political competition’ is enacted
appropriately, measured against some normative ideals. As our argument has outmarketing
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lined, this relationship is multi-faceted and ambiguous. Different conceptual
implementations of political marketing management can be ‘tested’ against
different theories of democracy. Our juxtaposition has shown that while a sellingoriented
PMM is to some extent compatible with a Schumpeterian approach of
competitive elitism, the ideal of a deliberative democracy shows more affinity with
a relational interpretation of PMM. What becomes clear is that the instrumentally-focused
PMM, i.e. the political marketing approach most clearly associated with
the current normal paradigm of marketing theory (Wilkie and Moore, 2003),
shows the least overlap with the conceptual demands of either theory of democracy.
This has considerable implications for the development of political
marketing management theory and underlines the need for alternative and critical
concept and method development in political marketing (Lock and Harris, 1996;
Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007).
A clear implication of our analysis is that political marketing needs to engage
with theories of democracy in order to provide itself with legitimacy. While political
marketing may arguably be ‘conceptually neutral’, its application and practice
is not and needs to be imbued with a normative aim. For example, political relationship
marketing, if pursued by politicians and political parties, could succeed in
moving politics further towards the forms of deliberative democracy. The concepts,
techniques and technologies inherent in the idea of political marketing, and
based on societal marketing considerations, could be used to foster a true relationship
between party, politician and their publics, re-inventing traditional
methods of political proselytization such as direct mail, to inform as well as persuade,
to listen as well as consult (Johansen, 2005). There are of course some good
examples of exactly this, such as the 3000 constituents engaged in an internet dialogue
with the British Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Webb (ST, 2005) or the
Proposition Movement in California, a phenomenon that dates from the progressive
era of a century ago.
In fact, the rise of such phenomena as bloggers, the idea of ‘net roots’ and the
cacophony of democratic noise emanating from the internet, has persuaded some
at least that we are on the edge of a new era of deliberative or consultative democracy
(Collins and Butler, 2003). The resulting change in the balance of power
between policy producer (political parties and politicians as well as media) and
policy consumer (citizens), and the empowerment of self authorship, has some
potential impact on the future possibilities for a deliberative democracy which can
be channelled via relational marketing practices.
For its critics, the idea of ‘political marketing’ will be perennially suspect and
anathema in relation to ‘democracy’, similar to the concept of marketing in the
public sector in general (Collins and Butler, 2003; Laing, 2003). This is partly
because of the negative resonances of the linguistic juxtaposition, which would
appear to merge a significant activity, politics, with a seemingly trivial and inherently
insignificant one, namely marketing. The inference is that political marketing
management represents the ideology of consumerism applied to politics, and
thus connects to broader fears about consumerism and consumer culture. While
we do not want to be apologists of political marketing in our discourse, i.e. we see
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our argument as an ‘ordering attempt’, not as an ‘order’ (Tadajewski, 2006), we
argue that the critics’ view takes into account neither the subtleties of different
interpretations of political marketing nor those of different ideals of liberal
democracy. While some of the concerns against PMM can be dismissed as
amounting to mere prejudice (Henneberg, 2004), others are credible, for example
the costs inherent in a marketing conceptualization of politics do mortgage politicians
and parties, particularly in America, to powerful vested interests (Harris and
Lock, 2005). This would be a potential vindication of the Schumpeterian case; the
gratification of sectarian interest is then seen as inherent in the practice of political
marketing. Cost is a mighty factor in campaigning, and this raises fears of public
opinion becoming a commodity to be manufactured, bought or sold, i.e. the commoditization
of opinion which becomes dysfunctional to the collective interest.
If political marketing management is defined to embrace the isolated use of
sophisticated instruments, e.g. the generation of public imagery such as George
Bush on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and aspects of the so-called
permanent campaign (O’Shaughnessy, 1990; Nimmo, 1999), then the critique that
political marketing is enhancing an illusion of participation becomes more credible.
However, we argue that there are other definitions of political marketing management
and that we cannot choose between the desirability or appropriateness of
these alternatives without explicating the democratic yardstick we use. What
emerges clearly out of our exploration is that types of marketing have implications,
conducive and corrupting, for ideal types. We have examined only two
models of democracy; but for both of these we find that that the instrumentallyoriented
perspective of PMM which dominates current (political) marketing theory
is the least appropriate in terms of conceptual overlap with theories.
Thus, we are left with two alternative narratives, which represent different
assessments of the present and different ideas about future possibilities. The one,
based on a rhetoric of technology-driven empowerment, meaningful relationships,
a societal orientation, and inspired by ideals of deliberative democracy,
would portray a benign future constituted by a broadening down of democracy
and enhanced by the application of relational political marketing tools, technologies
and concepts. The alternative is to argue for acceptance of the elitist model,
either from the perspective that it represents a genuinely more workable model of
democracy, or from the cynical resignation of the disillusioned idealist. It may
therefore be that political marketing management emerges almost naturally out of
political competition, and is shaped by the structure of this competition. This
would mean a preference for a selling-oriented PMM, including a strategic posture
of leading the electorate (Henneberg, 2006). In either case, the status accorded to
political marketing management is critical to the ascription of future scenarios of
a desired democracy. Furthermore, for any of these two narratives to happen, the
dominant paradigm in (political) marketing management needs to change.
Further research on this issue is necessary. In fact, the development of a critical
theory of political marketing that takes an exchange perspective seriously and
adapts it to the political sphere is an important stepping stone for further concept
development in this area (Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007). This would
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include an understanding of the contingencies of the interplay of different aspects
of political marketing management and normative theories of democracy, and
therefore constitute a ‘marketing systems’ approach (Shaw and Jones, 2005). As
Dann et al. (2007) have pointed out, the current agenda is in need of comparative
research about both the effectiveness and also the relevance of political marketing.
While we were only able to focus on two interpretations of the democratic ideal, it
is necessary to relate political marketing theory as well as practice to the contemporary
discussions in political science and democratic theory. This includes discussions
(and empirical analyses) of ethical dimensions of the interplay of political
marketing management and theories of democracy, i.e. aspects which we have
only ‘framed’ through our argument but have not extensively touched upon
(Hunt and Vittell, 1986; Laczniak and Murphy, 2006; Mayo and Marks, 1990).
Teleological (i.e. outcome-related) and deontological (i.e. means or duty-related)
considerations are possible foundations for such political marketing ethics (Crane
and Desmond, 2002; Gaski, 1999). Furthermore, political marketing research
needs to take the concerns of political scientists seriously and develop alternative
PMM models which are complementary to the dominant instrumental view of
political marketing.
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Dr Stephan C. Henneberg is a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at the Manchester
Business School, University of Manchester, UK. Currently, he is a Visiting Professor of
Marketing at Bocconi University, Milan. His research interests are in the areas of strategic
marketing, relational marketing, consumer behaviour, and social and political marketing.
He publishes regularly on political marketing, e.g. in the Journal of Marketing
Management, Journal of Political Marketing, and Journal of Public Affairs. Stephan has
organized several international academic conferences and PhD-colloquia on political
marketing. He has edited a book of readings on The Idea of Political Marketing, Praeger
(2002), jointly with N. O’Shaughnessy. Address: Manchester Business School, Booth
Street West, Manchester M15 6PB.
[email: Stephan.Henneberg@mbs.ac.uk]
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Dr Margaret Scammell is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at the
London School of Economics. Her current research interests are political branding,
campaigning, political journalism and broad aspects of media and democracy. She is the
author of Designer Politics (1995), co-author of On-Message: Communicating the
Campaign (1999) and Media, Journalism and Democracy (2000). Address: Department
of Media and Communication, London School of Economics, Houghton Street,
London WC2A 2AE.
[email: M.Scammell@lse.ac.uk]
Dr Nicholas J. O’Shaughnessy is Professor of Marketing and Communication at Queen
Mary, University of London, and is Quondam Fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge
University. Previously he was Director of the Centre for Research in Consumer and
Social Marketing at Brunel University Business School. He is the author of a number of
books on marketing and political marketing, and numerous journal articles. His latest
book, Politics and Propaganda, Weapons of Mass Seduction, has just been published by
the University of Michigan Press and the University of Manchester Press. Address:
School of Management, Queen Mary, London University, Mile End Road, London
E14NS.
[email: n_o_shaughnessy@hotmail.com]
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