This edited volume maps the development of the use of political campaigning and marketing techniques in countries of the former Communist Bloc over the last thirty years. Focusing on the shift from propaganda to political marketing, and from manipulation to persuasion, the book consists of a series of case studies of countries in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Balkans that outline the history, development and current state of political marketing in each country. The authors explore political parties and their behaviour ahead of elections, and show the changes in political culture and practices that parties have undergone in order to create more or less successful campaigns.

Casting light on the evolution of political marketing in Central and Eastern Europe, this book delivers an intriguing snapshot into both the sophistication of campaign strategies and the triumphs and trials facing democratic progress in this increasingly complex political landscape. Free elections, following the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, brought the need to attract voters through election campaigns and therefore, races involving political marketing began, and electoral campaigns in CEE began to resemble those of Western democracies. Most political parties operating in the region became quickly accustomed to the new approach to politics and a broad range of political marketing tools and techniques. This edited volume focuses on political campaign professionalization in general (in Lithuania) and in TV spots (in Poland), and celebritization (in Croatia). The second part of the volume focuses on struggles of opposition in authoritarian regime (in Russia), whether Facebook can serve as an effective political marketing tool in an illiberal context (in Hungary), and the communication and campaigning of authoritarian presidents in a hybrid regime (in Serbia). All of them are recent case studies. The chapters in this volume were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Marketing.

This book provides a critical analysis of the politics of migration in Eastern Europe and an in-depth understanding of the role played by media and public discourse in shaping migration and migration policy. Ruxandra Trandafoiu looks at emigration, diaspora, return, kin-minority cross-border mobility, and immigration in Eastern Europe from cultural, social and political angles, tracing the evolution of migration policies across Eastern Europe through communication, public debate and political strategy. Trandafoiu investigates the extent to which these potential ‘models’ or policy practices can be comparable to those in Western European countries, or whether Eastern Europe can give rise to a migration ‘system’ that rivals the North American one. Each chapter bridges the link between policy and politics and makes a case for considering migration politics as fundamentally intertwined with media representation and public debate. Drawing on comparative case studies of countries including Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine, the book considers how migration is both managed and experienced from political, social and cultural viewpoints and from the perspectives of a range of actors including migrants, politicians, policymakers and journalists. This book will be key reading for advanced students and researchers of migration, media, international relations, and political communication.

Media and Public Relations Research in Post-Socialist Societies tracks the birth, development, and contemporary expansion of communication research, with a focus on public relations and media research in post-socialist societies. This collection illuminates the current state of media and communication studies in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Central Asia. Contributors discuss and demonstrate various issues of disciplinary roots and tensions, institutional constraints, study development, and contemporary status. This book also illustrates diverse types of traditional and contemporary communication studies from humanities and social science perspectives, ranging from linguistics to health communication. This collection focuses on both traditional and modern scholarship that has arisen due to international scholarly efforts, the advent of technology, and national research interests. Readers will have the opportunity to intellectually discuss the conceptual, theoretical, and practical issues that have occurred within the past twenty years regarding public relations, mass communication, and media studies in post-socialist societies. The analyses in this book lead readers to consider potential resolutions to some of the current dialectical tensions that are affecting post-socialist communication studies and contemplate how reflecting on these tensions informs the broader field of communication worldwide.

This book investigates how political parties from 12 European countries used Facebook to inform, interact with and mobilise voters at the 2019 European Parliament election. Following a joint theoretical framework and method, the results of a content analysis of more than 14,000 Facebook posts are presented. Country specific chapters are followed by analyses of European parties Facebook campaigning, the spread of populism and the use of Facebook ads by the parties. The final chapter compares all countries showing that campaigns are more strongly shaped by the national than by the European political context. Facebook is used for campaigning as usual; parties inform and persuade but neglect the platforms mobilisation and particularly interactive affordances.

This book explores the varying ways in which political parties in Europe make arguably their most important decisions: the selection of their leaders. The choice shapes the representation of a party externally. It also influences the management of internal conflict, because there will always be some disagreement about the party’s direction. The rules of selection will naturally affect the outcome. Yet there is more to it than rules. Sometimes the process is open and fiercely contested. Sometimes the field of potential leaders is filtered even before the decision reaches the selectorate – the organ that, according to party statutes, formally makes the appointment. The selectorate might have only a single candidate to ratify, a so-called ‘coronation’. The book presents a framework for analysing both the formal and informal sides of leader selection, and hones the framework through its application in a series of case studies from nine European countries.

This book investigates the phenomenon of permanent campaigning in Greece over the last decade. It explores the political communication strategies of three recent successive Greek prime ministers from 2012 until the early months of 2022 to deal with economic, migration and pandemic crises, from a permanent campaigning perspective. Moreover, it evaluates and measures, for the first time, their permanent campaign strategies using the proposed framework of Lilleker and Joathan (2020) and the three following indicators: capacity building and strategy, paid and owned media and earned media. The need for presidents to communicate with public opinion and their dependence on public support is anything but new. Τhe difference in the case of the permanent campaign is that the campaign tools, methods, techniques and personnel follow the elected leader in office in order to back his constant efforts to retain or even increase public approval as well as advance their re-election prospects. This book aims to extend the research on the permanent campaigning in European parliamentary systems and will be of interest to political communication and campaigning students and researchers.

This Handbook is the first major work to comprehensively map state-of-the-art scholarship on electoral debates in comparative perspective. Leading scholars and practitioners from around the world introduce a core theoretical and conceptual framework to understand this phenomenon and point to promising directions for new research on the evolution of electoral debates and the practical considerations that different country-level experiences can offer. Three indicators to help analyze electoral debates inform this Handbook: the level of experience of each country in the realization of electoral debates; geopolitical characteristics linked to political influence; and democratic stability and electoral competitiveness. Chapters with examples from the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Asia and Oceania add richness to the volume. Each chapter: Traces local historical, constitutive relationships between traditional forms of electoral debates and contexts of their emergence; Compares and critiques different perspectives regarding the function of debates on democracy; Probes, discusses and evaluates recent and emergent theoretical resources related to campaign debates in light of a particular local experience; Explores and assesses new or neglected local approaches to electoral debates in a changing media landscape where television is no longer the dominant form of political communication; Provides a prospective analysis regarding the future challengers for electoral debates. The Routledge International Handbook on Electoral Debates will set the agenda for scholarship on the political communication for years to come.

The loss of credibility of traditional media and democratic institutions points to the important challenges for the democratic system. Social networks have allowed new political and social actors to disseminate their messages, which has raised diversity. However, it has also lowered the standards for the circulation of messages and has increased disinformation and hate speech. Contemporary Politics, Communication, and the Impact on Democracy addresses communication and politics and the impact on democracy. This book offers a valuable contribution regarding the challenges and threats faced by traditional and stable democracies while disinformation, polarization, and populism have a main role in the present hybrid communicative scenario. Covering topics such as digital authoritarianism, emotional and rational frames, and political conflict on social media, this is an essential resource for political scientists, communication specialists, analysts, policymakers, politicians, critical media scholars, graduate students, professors, researchers, and academicians.