Selling yourself: a preliminary analysis of political candidates as marketers and entrepreneurs
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEPP-D-18-00028 |
| Published date | 03 September 2018 |
| Pages | 269-278 |
| Date | 03 September 2018 |
| Author | M. Garrett Roth |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,Entrepreneurship,Business climate/policy |
Selling yourself: a preliminary
analysis of political candidates as
marketers and entrepreneurs
M. Garrett Roth
Gannon University, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to view political candidates as products in a market competing over
quality via advertising. Consequently, the Austrian argument against restrictions on product advertising can
be applied to political markets as well. The foremost conclusion is a disproportionately negative effect of
campaign finance restrictions on lesser-known incumbents and third-party candidates. A counterargument is
also presented that campaign finance restrictions may solve a prisoner’s dilemma.
Design/methodology/approach –The author provides an initial test of these hypotheses with data from
US Senate races occurring before and after the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002.
Findings –Empirical results show a strong incumbency advantage, but no disproportionate harm to
lesser-known candidates or third parties from the passage of the act.
Originality/value –The paper provides a new perspective on the role of the political candidate and purpose
of campaign advertising. The first pass empirics suggest, however, that only a major revision in campaign
advertising rules could significantly alter the predictors of challenger vote shares.
Keywords Campaign finance reform, Political advertising, Political candidates, Political entrepreneurship
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
This paper applies Israel Kirzner’s conception of advertising in private markets to the
process of political campaigning. In so doing, I depict the candidate as an entrepreneur
selling the service of political representation in a zero-sum election game. As opposed to the
traditional conception of the political entrepreneur as a lobbyist or lobbying group,
considering the candidates themselves allows for both positive analysis of the campaigning
process and normative prescriptions regarding the ongoing policy debate surrounding
campaign finance restrictions. More specifically, I argue that the repercussions of campaign
finance restrictions are likely to be detrimental to challengers and especially to those
without previous political experience, shift political influence toward opinion-molders
outside of the campaigns themselves and disproportionately affect third-party candidates.
While these predictions themselves are not entirely new (e.g. Lott, 2007, Chapter 2), a
Kirznerian, politician-as-product analysis of campaigning better fleshes out their underlying
causality than an anecdotal or strictly empirical approach. I am, consequently, providing the
metaphorical cart to which the existing horse can be hitched.
The phrase “political entrepreneur”was, to the best knowledge of the author, first used
by Richard Wagner (1966) in his review of Mancur Olson’s (1965) Logic of Collective Action.
Wagner (via Olson) laid the groundwork for a political entrepreneurship literature which
overwhelmingly focuses on lobbyists as political entrepreneurs[1]. No less important,
however, is the role of candidates themselves as such entrepreneurs. Potential candidates
seek out profitable campaign opportunities and must, most importantly, market themselves
as decision-making surrogates and providers of constituent services.
The former observation is discussed at great length by Francois (2003). However, his
analysis is limited in two major respects. First, Francois overstates the malleability of a
given candidate to respond to changing political demands. If candidates were merely
conduits to supply the policy demands of constituents, the implications of Duncan Black’s
Journal of Entrepreneurship and
Public Policy
Vol. 7 No. 3, 2018
pp. 269-278
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2045-2101
DOI 10.1108/JEPP-D-18-00028
Received 3 July 2018
Revised 10 July 2018
Accepted 11 July 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2045-2101.htm
269
Preliminary
analysis of
political
candidates
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