An Epistemological Perspective on Research in Political Marketing

ABSTRACT Research on political marketing has now established itself as a spirited subdiscipline of mainstream marketing, producing considerable numbers of high-quality learned articles and books each year. However, a certain stagnation in knowledge development has been identified. Consequently, this article links this inadequacy to the dominating tendency of focusing research on campaign applications of marketing instruments, emphasizing a reactive and managerial orientation. In discussing the core of political marketing theory, two different stances are identified: first, a narrow one, focusing on understanding marketing activities in politics, and second, a wider one, concerned with a more holistic attempt of achieving breadth of knowledge of politics. An idiosyncratic discussion of the ontology and epistemological implications of this wider stance identifies four concepts as pivotal: the exchange character of political marketing; a “qualified” market environment; the social embeddedness of the political system in other generic systems; and the structural connectedness of political marketing and politics, implying ethical considerations. While current research limitations in political marketing can be explained by an (implicit) focus on the narrow interpretation of political marketing theory, the wider stance frames a new research agenda for political marketing that provides new directions and less restricted conceptual horizons. The article closes with a discussion of such a new research agenda by providing descriptions of six key research areas of political marketing and outlines implications for the field of political marketing.