Behind the scenes of politics

How the presidential campaigns take place in the United States ? At a time when the modes of communication evolve quickly and when campaigns of all kinds are incessant, it is interesting to study the way in which American presidential campaigns are carried out by politicians who prepare the ground for the rest of the electorate. Daniel Laurison, associate professor of sociology at the Swarthmore College, specialist in political engagement and inequalities, has entered the place where everything happens. In an exciting work intended for a large audience (non-university), D. Laurison describes in a very detailed and captivating way how politicians act as cultural and intermediate entrepreneurs between the candidate and the electorate during the presidential campaigns in the United States. In the space of six well-designed chapters, he shows that political campaigns at the presidential level may not be what we think they are: instead of connecting voters to the political sphere, they tend to have the opposite effect, by diverting them from politics. More specifically, Laurison says that

The campaigns of today, with a few exceptions (…), are not intended to bring people together or bring the electors closer to politics. The emphasis on one -way messages, the priority given to existing voters rather than new voters or occasional voters, and negative advertising – combined with the distance of their authors compared to ordinary people – in fact divert many people from politics. (p. 142)

Given the considerable effects that political campaigns can have and the essential role that political agents play in these campaigns, this systematic study of politicos is a welcome complement to the study of political actors and the behaviors associated with them. The academics, but also the general public, should know more about this category of political agents long neglected. According to Laurison, they should do so by going beyond the theory of rational choice. Political agents are not necessarily brains that maximize utility and develop political strategies as political machines would. They are also human beings subject to the social expectations of their field and to the received ideas that dominate the ground.

What’s going on in the United States ?

Presenting the way in which he himself entered the world of political and political campaigns, Laurison begins by defining the demographic characteristics and the trajectories of political agents. By examining the race, sex, education and social class of politicians he has rubbed shoulders, he explains in detail who wishes and comes to work in politics at the national level (p. 39). He then carefully describes what to do to enter it and how politicians sail in the political arena. Overcoming the data accessibility problems that researchers had to face the presidential elections, Laurison successfully reveals what he calls “ The hidden world of campaigns (P. 54).

Along with an elaborate Description of Campaign Departments and more formal Structures of Political Campaigns, He Describes What He has found to be Conventional Wisdom for Politicos Working in Presidential Races (p.121), what is considering to be “Cookie-Cutter” Campaigning (p. 118), or well it takes to do Microtargeting or predictive analytics (p. 121). He Interviewed A Total of Seventy-Two People (Some of them Twice), Who Respectively Took on Different Roles in Presidential Campaigns included Campaign Managers, Field Directors, etc. Collectively, they have acts the producers of US Politics.

In addition to a detailed description of the campaign departments and the more formal structures of political campaigns, he describes the conventional wisdom of politicians working in presidential races (p. 121), which is considered a campaign “ key (P. 118), or what it takes to make microciblage or predictive analysis (p. 121). He questioned in total sixty-two people (some of them twice), who have respectively assumed various roles in the presidential campaigns, in particular as campaign directors, field directors, etc. Collectively, they played the role of producers of American policy.

A particularly interesting aspect of the internal functioning of the political campaigns that Laurison underlines (and which could arouse a much longer scientific debate) is the apparent absence of fundamental modification in the working methods of the campaigns, despite the development of the new media and the technological advances which we have witnessed in recent years: “ Why have new media and technological landscape transformed politics into an entirely new animal ? He asks (p. 101). Answer : “ (L) people who produce politics have not changed much (P. 101).

While admitting that the general structure of presidential campaigns has remained more or less the same, the generalization of practices based on algorithms in recent years seems to have triggered a generational change of their respective agents, even in the political arena. Indeed, the cogs of presidential campaigns may not have changed much at the time, but they change much more radically today (see the section “ What happens next ? »Below for more details).

What happens elsewhere ?

However, before examining how the temporal variable changes some of Laurison’s conclusions, it would be important to examine the spatial variations in the models he found at the time of his study. As part of this first systematic analysis of politicians’ work, Laurison has effectively focused on the internal functioning of political elections in the United States. However, the transferability and/or applicability of Laurison’s results in different contexts must be studied in more detail. For example, French readers, or their European neighbors, might wonder to what extent it can be applicable, or even relevant, on the other side of the Atlantic. Do politicians in other countries like France play the same type of role as their American counterparts ? Their effects on the countryside and the elections are they alike ? To what extent do their networks extend beyond the borders ? Do political agents around the world adopt the same type of strategies, since social media and digital space are not limited by national borders ? If this is the case, do algorithms based on the convergence of organizational and cultural practices ?

In light of these persistent questions, a transatlantic comparison of differences and similarities between American and French cases could be stimulating and enriching. It would be reasonable to expect that we find in other countries similar schemes of disinterest in politics because of the way political campaigns are carried out. (Voting habits and abstention levels could also be revealing of these trends.) Nevertheless, the variations observed at the national level in terms of political campaigns and political culture, depending in particular of the work carried out by political agents, must be the subject of a more in -depth examination.

What happens next ?

Laurison concludes her book by asking a few fundamental questions about the representativeness of the democratic system. It also offers important perspectives on the health and general well-being of American democracy, in particular in the light of the high levels of inequality that we face today. However, it remains fairly shy in its theoretical and empirical commitments on the disinctions of disinformation, the crisis of expertise and the more widespread use of practices based on algorithms. Some of the observations he makes on transformations – or the absence of transformations – brought by technological advances do not seem to reflect the most recent trends in campaign data analysis. Most of the interviews used for this book were collected in 2009-10 and 2017, with some telephone interviews and zoom carried out in 2021 (p. XVIII). Although they make it possible to grasp the boom in social media and the first stages of their use in political campaigns, the data used by Laurison in this work is rather limited in the analysis of more widespread and more recent uses of digital tools, in particular during the 2020 American electoral cycle or even the American presidential election of 2024 to come. As an extension of Laurison’s innovative work on the political campaigns of the 2010s, it is advisable to question not only the way in which the presidential campaigns are carried out, but also on the way in which they are carried out in the current digital era.

The 2024 American presidential election will be the first electoral cycle in which theIA Generative, such as Chatgpt, will be widely available. Given the rapid development of social media and digital platforms, we are already faced with a crucial question: what happens now and what will happen next ? As such, it would be historically important to document and examine the changes that algorithms have brought to the political sphere in recent years. How do the methods of management of political campaigns evolve with the general adoption of theIA and algorithmic practices in the world ? How do they affect the expectations we have with regard to our political leaders ? How do they transform the collective imaginations to which we have been accustomed so far ? Given the transformative nature of algorithmic practices, the changes made by theIA to campaign practices and the way in which we collectively engage in politics must be analyzed both on the side of the supply (politicians, political agents, etc.) and on the side of demand (expectations, requests from voters, etc.) of electoral policy. The analyzes of these critical changes at the micro (individual), meso (group) and macro (state) levels are more necessary than ever.