Political Parties and Electoral Mobilization: Political Structure, Social Structure, and the Party Canvass

TLDR

Political parties act as agents of electoral mobilization, shaping the flow of political communication. The study investigates who parties aim to mobilize, the factors shaping mobilization strategies, and the intended and unintended effects on voters and the electorate. The authors find that party canvassing sparks a diffusion-driven mobilization cascade, that mobilization depends on institutional and local strategic contexts, and that party actions create a political structure that can compete with or operate independently of social structure.

Abstract

As agents of electoral mobilization, political parties occupy an important role in the social flow of political communication. We address several questions regarding party mobilization efforts. Whom do the parties seek to mobilize? What are the individual and aggregate characteristics and criteria that shape party mobilization efforts? What are the intended and unintended consequences of partisan mobilization, both for individual voters and for the electorate more generally? In answering these questions we make several arguments. First, party efforts at electoral mobilization inevitably depend upon a process of social diffusion and informal persuasion, so that the party canvass serves as a catalyst aimed at stimulating a cascading mobilization process. Second, party mobilization is best seen as being environmentally contingent upon institutional arrangements, locally defined strategic constraints, and partisan divisions within particular electorates. Finally, the efforts of party organizations generate a layer of political structure within the electorate that sometimes competes with social structure and often exists independently from it.