Political Parties and Campaigning in Australia

Big data and microtargeting steal the headlines about campaigning. But how important are they really to the way that political parties campaign? This book provides a fine-grained account of the campaign practices of three Australian political parties. It explores how prevalent data-driven campaigning is, introduces an original theoretical framework to understand these practices, and demonstrates that there is a disconnect between what Australian voters think about these issues and the way that parties campaign in the 21st century. Drawing on 161 interviews, participant observation and original survey data, it shows that the reality of contemporary campaigning is often different to what we are led to believe.

Author Biography

Glenn Kefford is a lecturer in political science at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He has previously been employed at Macquarie University in Sydney and at the University of Tasmania as a lecturer in politics. He currently holds a prestigious Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellowship for 2019-2021. His research is in the area of Australian and comparative politics, elections and campaigning. He has published widely on these topics in publications including Party Politics, Parliamentary Affairs and the British Journal of Politics and IR.