Introduction to Special Issue on Political Marketing

Recent trends in political marketing research and practice suggest a move from a short-term transaction-based approach to a relationship and network-based approach. The collection of new research in the Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing published in 2012 suggests there has been a shift from neglecting political party members to seeing internal stakeholders as integral to successful political marketing; from short-term benefit to long-term, mutual and interactive communication; and from campaigning to governing necessitating greater integration of political marketing into leadership. Practitioners can therefore choose more-dialogical and transformational approaches to achieve and maintain relationships with political consumers over the long term.