Political Strategy And Tactics

This book aims to bridge a broadly applicable and validated theory and the practical challenges that face any individual acting in the face of a power imbalance. It underpins the practical advice with a detailed sociology of action of the phenomenon known as strategy. The only thing required to use this strategy is some capacity for abstract thought for planning a strategy and some self-awareness and discipline for implementing it. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the possibilities available to the strategist, and provides a simple method of developing a strategy.

Strategy presents considerable theoretical and practical interest. From a theoretical standpoint, it presents the advantage of being applicable to a wide range of situations. Developing a general theory for strategy also frees it from any regional or thematic context. Strategy can therefore be applied to any context. From a practical standpoint, a strategy generates a number of polyvalent methodologies, intelligible both to the academic and the lay person. These methodologies have been proposed as valid irrespective of the political system, ideology, socio-economic circumstance, or type of actor involved. The first step in this proposal began with the development of a methodology for theory-building. The construction of a theory also produced a template and subsidiary method for adapting the theory to more specific problems. A second set of case studies using the individual citizen as actor have also been completed, including the analysis of individuals using strategy in their interactions with phenomena, other individuals, infra-national groups, supra-national groups, the government of a state, and an international organisation of states. In parallel to these theoretical works is a series of practical works, whose goal is to make available the methodologies produced by strategic theory, but without requiring the abstract theoretical work of the other strand. This strand includes books on organisational political strategy and tactics for individuals and small groups, as well as using strategy in political activism and on how to use strategy to analyse national and international policies established by governments. The book contains a substantive set of worksheets useful in developing and carrying out a political strategy, making it applicable in both the theoretical and practical realms.

This is an advanced guide to running political campaigns. It provides invaluable, practical advice from the leading pros in the industry.

Articles provide advice for candidates, campaign managers, and party workers on running a political campaign, including strategies, research, finances, advertising, and related topics.

Coming out of one of the most contentious elections in history, Dennis Johnson and Lara Brown have assembled an outstanding team of authors to examine one of the fiercest and most closely fought presidential elections of our time. Like the 2008 and 2012 editions of Campaigning for President, the 2016 edition combines the talents and insights of political scientists who specialize in campaigns and elections together with seasoned political professionals who have been involved in previous presidential campaigns. Campaigning for President is the only series on presidential campaigns that features both political scientists and professional consultants. This book focuses on the most important questions of this most unusual presidential campaign. What was the appeal of Donald Trump? Has Twitter and social media become the dominant means of communicating? How did fake news, WikiLeaks, and the Russians factor in this election? What happened to the Obama coalition and why couldn’t Hillary Clinton capitalize on it? Hundreds of millions of Super PAC dollars were raised and spent, and much of that was wasted. What happened? Is the wild west of online media the new norm for presidential contests? These and many other questions are answered in the provocative essays by scholars and practitioners. The volume also is packed with valuable appendixes: a timeline of the presidential race, biographical sketches of each candidate, a roster of political consultants, the primary and general election results, exit polls, and campaign spending. New to the 2016 Edition The 2016 presidential contest brings a completely new set of players, policies, and electoral challenges. Like the 2008 and 2012 editions, the authors probe the strategies and tactics of the candidate campaigns and the outside organizations. The chapters focus on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but also look at the Bernie Sanders insurgency, the collapse of the mainstream Republican candidates, and the dynamics of the general election. Chapters also analyze the changes in campaign finance, new technologies, the role of social media, and how fake news and subterfuge might become the new realities of presidential campaigning.

A comprehensive guide to and analysis of modern political campaign communication.

Campaign Craft, Fourth Edition begins with campaign planning and moves to resource and strategic considerations. This text covers contemporary campaign techniques from every angle, ranging from street-level voter contact to emerging trends in political technology. The Fourth Edition provides an in-depth illustration of campaign strategy, including the latest in netroots organizing and Web 2.0 outreach. --Book Jacket.

Strategy is a simple and powerful method of analysis, it works in the abstract and it is new to most readers. Designed for the overburdened political operative, constituent steps of strategy are easy to understand, analyse or design once divested of their theoretical apparatus. Strategy's powers for coping with uncertainty and the unexpected are easily harnessed for the achievement of political success, and it is by this ease of application that the design of the present book may be judged. It is possible, for example, for the harried reader to go directly to the chapters on developing a campaign strategy or designing a response to a political tactic. The goal of the present book is to propose that strategy can be a suitable foundation for the analysis and development of any electoral candidate's campaign, the significance of events in the course of that campaign, and the prescription of a course of action, strategic or tactical, for winning elections. By taking into account strategic interventions as well as strategic interactions, it is possible to run a successful campaign for parties or individual candidates. Strategy provides a useful forecasting tool for relations between all the actors who may be involved (individuals, groups, political parties, factions within those parties, governments at various levels, pressure groups and even election officials), which are fraught or otherwise difficult. This book is the most recent instalment in a series of books and articles introducing a new general theory of strategy and its applications to an audience primarily composed of non-strategists. The present series of books also fit into a broader oeuvre, integrated along three axes. The first axis focuses on the methodological and theoretical development of this new theory of strategy. The second axis presents several structured sets of case studies focusing on the various types of actors in political systems, broadly defined. The third axis presents a series of exercises and worksheets which pertain either to particular applications of strategy or which spans the intellectual development of a good strategist. This book covers both the first and third axes, explaining the use of strategy in election campaigns.