First- and second-order campaigning: Evidence from Germany

Abstract

In recent years, political parties have reacted to some far-reaching transformations in their media and sociocultural environment. Respective changes and adaptations, often summarized under the catchword of ‘professionalization’, become most vivid during election campaigns. However, parties’ election campaign professionalism has seldom been ‘measured’, and it has mostly been exemplified in single case studies so far. Against this backdrop, the article presents an empirical test of the party-centered theory of professionalization. It is an intertemporal comparison of political parties’ campaign structures and strategies on the occasion of the two most recent European and national parliamentary elections in Germany. The analyses provide empirical evidence for professionalization-related changes. Plus, it is demonstrated that transformations take place at two different campaign levels, the first-order national and the second-order European level. These exemplary results should be taken into account in future empirical analyses that might reflect our methodological approach, too.