Data-Driven Campaigning in the 2015 United Kingdom General Election

TLDR

Data‑driven campaigning is well studied in the US but poorly understood elsewhere, making the 2015 UK General Election a valuable case for examining how such practices evolve in a different national context. The study investigates how UK parties use data in campaigns, the significance of these practices, and their interaction with Britain’s institutional context, while raising broader theoretical and normative questions about data‑driven politics. Thirty‑one in‑depth interviews with political practitioners from six major UK parties and electoral regulators were conducted to explore data‑driven campaign practices.

Abstract

While we know something of data-driven campaigning practices in the United States, we know much less about the role of data in other national contexts. The 2015 United Kingdom General Election offers an important case study of how such practices are evolving and being deployed in a different setting. This article draws on thirty-one in-depth interviews with political practitioners involved in the use of data for six major UK parties and electoral regulators. These interviews are employed to explore the perceived importance of data in contemporary British campaigns, to understand the data-based campaign techniques being used by UK parties, and to assess how data-driven practices are interacting with the preexisting institutional context of British politics. Going beyond the specifics of the UK case, this study raises questions about the comparative, theoretical, and normative dimensions of data-driven politics.