Kefford, G., Dommett, K. orcid.org/0000-0003-0624-6610, Baldwin-Philippi, J. et al. (5 more authors) (2022) Data-driven campaigning and democratic disruption : evidence from six advanced democracies. Party Politics. ISSN 1354-0688
Abstract
Data-driven campaigning has become one of the key foci for academic and non-academic audiences interested in political communication. Widely seen to have transformed political practice, it is often argued that data-driven campaigning is a force of significant democratic disruption because it contributes to a fragmentation of political discourse, undermines prevailing systems of electoral accountability and subverts ‘free’ and ‘fair’ elections. In this article, we present one of the very first cross-national analyses of data-driven campaigning by political parties. Drawing on empirical research conducted by experts in six advanced democracies, we show that the data-driven campaign practices seen to threaten democracy are often not manifest in party campaigns. Instead, we see a set of practices that build on pre-existing techniques and which are far less sophisticated than is often assumed. Indeed, we present evidence that most political parties lack the capacity to execute the hyper-intensive practices often associated with data-driven campaigning. Hence, while there is reason to remain alert to the challenges data-driven campaigning produces for democratic norms, we argue that this practice is not inherently disruptive, but rather exemplifies the evolving nature of political campaigning in the 21st century.
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Party Politics. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. Article available under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). | ||||
Keywords: | political parties; campaigning; digital; data | ||||
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield | ||||
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Politics and International Relations (Sheffield) | ||||
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Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield | ||||
Date Deposited: | 06 May 2022 08:55 | ||||
Last Modified: | 06 May 2022 09:40 | ||||
Status: | Published online | ||||
Publisher: | SAGE Publications | ||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1177/13540688221084039 |
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Filename: Data-Driven Campaigning and Democratic Disruption Final.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0