Casting light on the evolution of political marketing in Central and Eastern Europe, this book delivers an intriguing snapshot into both the sophistication of campaign strategies and the triumphs and trials facing democratic progress in this increasingly complex political landscape.
Free elections, following the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, brought the need to attract voters through election campaigns and therefore, races involving political marketing began, and electoral campaigns in CEE began to resemble those of Western democracies. Most political parties operating in the region became quickly accustomed to the new approach to politics and a broad range of political marketing tools and techniques. This edited volume focuses on political campaign professionalization in general (in Lithuania) and in TV spots (in Poland), and celebritization (in Croatia). The second part of the volume focuses on struggles of opposition in authoritarian regime (in Russia), whether Facebook can serve as an effective political marketing tool in an illiberal context (in Hungary), and the communication and campaigning of authoritarian presidents in a hybrid regime (in Serbia). All of them are recent case studies.
The chapters in this volume were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Marketing.