Politics 345: Political Marketing 2024 will introduce students to election campaigns, voter engagement, government, and issue activism from a strategic perspective. It will examine the evolving relationship between political actors and voters. It will also examine how political candidates, parties, elected politicians, and interest groups utilise marketing and campaigning theories and concepts to achieve their electoral, policy, and societal goals.
The content of this course will be broken up into four modules:
- Module 1: The Political Marketplace will examine the evolving relationship between political candidates and voters. This will include examining the arguments underpinning political marketing as a sub-discipline of political science, competing theories of voter choice and political behaviour, as well as the ethical debates around treating voters like political consumers.
- Module 2: Election Campaigns Part 1 will examine core aspects of modern electioneering, including campaign strategies, political branding, political advertising, and media management. This module will also examine the growing role of party leaders in modern election campaigns.
- Module 3: Election Campaigns Part 2 will broaden the scope of modern campaigns examined. This will include exploring strategic efforts to increase voter turnout, the unique aspects of campaigning in the Māori electorates, how market research is utilised, and the effect of negative partisanship and polarisation on modern election campaigns.
- Module 4: Political Marketing Beyond Elections will examine several other strategic aspects of governance and issue activism. This will include examining delivery in government, the institutional challenges to delivering in government, as well as issue-specific campaigns and political activism.