The Democratic Contribution of Political Market Researchers

• Published date: 01 February 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1461
• Author: Jennifer Lees‐Marshment
• Date: 01 February 2015

■Academic Paper

The Democratic Contribution of Political

Market Researchers

Jennifer Lees-Marshment

Department of Political Studies, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Although we know that candidates, parties and governments conduct political market research and engage in heated

debate about it, market research in politics remains a largely hidden activity. This article presents the perspectives of

practitioners involved in collecting and using market research including advisors to 11 presidents and prime ministers

and demonstrates that market analysis in politics is a multi-varied activity, carried out within a complex context. The

over-simplistic criticism that political marketing means politicians simply follow focus groups needs to be revised,

and although poor practice will always occur, practitioners are developing more fluid and mature ways to utilize

research in politics. Political market research can play a valuable role in informing the decisions politicians make

and enhance the relationship between the government and the public. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

The growing use of research by politicians, parties

and governments not just in how they communicate

but the decisions they make has raises concerns

because of the perceived democratic problems of

elevating the importance of market research and

consultants at the expense of political leadership

and conviction. Yet, we know little about how it

actually works in practice owing to the secrecy

that often surrounds the work of political advisors.

This article begins to fill that gap by analysing the

perspectives of practitioners involved in conducting

and using marketing research in politics and

governments in the UK, the USA, Canada, New

Zealand and Australia including those working

at the highest levels with presidents and prime

ministers. It reviews the debate about market

research in politics in existing literature, explains

the methodology and then analyses the data around

key principles of how market research is used in

politics. From this analysis, it presents a new model

of the process of political marketing research that

opens research to consider more positive uses of

political market research and that a more construc-

tive relationship between the public and the govern-

ment may be developing as a result.

DEBATE IN EXISTING LITERATURE ON

MARKET RESEARCH IN POLITICS

Academic research on the use of market research in

politics falls into two distinctive but related fields:

public opinion research and political marketing.

Public opinion is an older field and analyses both

the measurement of opinion and how such opinion

is formed [see Shapiro (2011) for a detailed outline

and review of the field]. Political marketing is a

newer field that explores how political elites use

information aboutthat opinion to inform their policy

and campaign decisions [see Scammell (1999) and

Lees-Marshment (2009) for an overview of the field].

Political marketing thus focuses on how public opin-

ion research is used by political elites in informing

their behaviour. As a field, it tends to use the term

market research rather than public opinion research

and studies a wider range of methods (focus groups,

polling, role play and co-creation). Research has

shown how politicians have used market research

to inform how they communicate with the electorate

(Franklin, 1994; Kavanagh, 1995; Scammell, 1995

and Wring, 2005) and to develop a political product

that aligns with voter demands (Newman, 1994;

O’Cass, 1996; Lees-Marshment, 2001; Ormrod, 2005;

Strömbäck, 2007). Several comparative studies

discuss how parties around the world use market

research to develop their political product and com-

munication (Bowler and Farrell, 1992; Lilleker and

Lees-Marshment, 2005; Lees-Marshment et al., 2010).

Although political marketing literature is more

recent, it has followed the same pattern as that in

*Correspondence to: Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Department of

Political Studies, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019,

Auckland, New Zealand.

E-mail j.lees-marshment@auckland.ac.nz

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 1 pp 4–13 (2015)

Published online in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1461

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.