Political marketing: A rational choice?

Savigny, Heather (2004) Political marketing: A rational choice? Journal of Political Marketing, 3 (1). pp. 21-38. ISSN 1537-7865

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Abstract

Political marketing is a relatively new approach to analysing political activity that draws upon management marketing assumptions to describe political behaviour. These assumptions are explicitly grounded in neoclassical economic assertions about behaviour. In political science these assumptions are utilised by orthodox rational choice theory. Thus, political marketing can be located within this perspective. Rational choice provides a series of analytic models through which ontological implications can be derived, and predictions made. Yet, the political marketing approach seeks to build upon orthodox rational choice accounts, by introducing a normative element to this perspective, prescribing the internalisation of these assumptions in order to achieve the desired objective. Further, this normative aspect claims that the adoption of marketing improves the democratic process. However, rational choice is an analytical ‘toolkit’ which does not seek to make normative claims. Indeed, normative arguments are inconsistent with rational choice, which seeks to provide a scientific, value-free approach to political analysis, and, consequently, the analytical and normative aspects of political marketing need to be rendered explicit and such normative aspects challenged.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Political, Social and International Studies (former - to 2014)
Depositing User:	EPrints Services
Date Deposited:	01 Oct 2010 13:56
Last Modified:	17 Jan 2024 01:22
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/9258
DOI:	10.1300/J199v03n01_02

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