Selling the Party

Abstract

Abstract This chapter traces the development of a politics industry, and its contribution to the nationalization of campaigns and partisan polarization, with a focus on the United States. It looks at communications and campaign technologies as well as deregulation of campaign finance in the nineteen-nineties and early eighties. As parties have invested more resources in the data game of campaigns, they have outsourced many other functions---including mobilization, representation, and interest articulation---to non-party groups, which weakens the ability of parties to govern effectively. This chapter also provides a recent history of campaign finance, and explains how the decentralization of campaign finance makes it harder for parties to manage insurgent candidates.