2. Theorising Contemporary Campaign Practices

This chapter will do three things. First, it will describe the relationship between how a political party campaigns and the way they organise themselves, drawing on much of the classic literature in the field. Second, it will discuss the literature on data-driven campaign practices. This includes the evidence about how these practices are affecting political parties and democracy. Third, I set out my original theoretical framework, the data-driven model of campaigning. I argue that this framework, built on insights from the empirical data collected for this project and the secondary literature, provides a way forward for scholars trying to understand different types of data-driven practices, including how these affect political parties in advanced democracies such as Australia.