Politics, persuasion, and the pursuit of power will always be sources of wonder to people living in deliberative democracies. Literature, television, and film are awash with stories examining the political process and people who try to navigate the treacherous waters of power. This is only natural, as people in power can change and shape our lives and impact our collective futures through legislative agenda. Political power is a tremendous tool for people motivated by political valuesâor for those who merely seek power for the sake of power. Aside from the people with actual power, there is a great interest for people in the opposition who plan to usurp the reigns of control, as well as the people surrounding the political system such as journalists and pundits.
While they explore the same thing, political shows take different perspectives on politicians and the political process in general. Some portray political operatives as self-serving, but incompetent fools (Veep, The Thick of It, and The New Statesman), some depict the political world as fast-paced, filled to the brim with competent savants and Machiavellian schemers (House of Cards and Newsroom), and yet some take a stance in between (West Wing, Yes Minister, and Borgen). In keeping with such characterisations, political operatives in these shows may hilariously bungle even the simplest strategy to gain power or mastermind devious strategies that eventually come together in ways the audience cannot foresee.
Regardless of the way they are portrayed, politicians in these shows tend to have one thing in common: they vie for power. If the representation is cynical, the government seeks power for the sake of power and may mislead or misinform the electorate to dupe them into supporting a particular candidate or policy. If the representation is more positive, we see politicians fight for power to implement political reform or carry out their legislative agenda in the interest of the people. In this case, they enlighten and inform the electorate, as the political person is convinced their way forward is the right one. Regardless of what people actually think of government, we are aware that politicians have to gain the favours of the general public in order to gain or remain in powerâwhether the purpose is to acquire power for powerâs sake or to enact legislation depends on context and individual candidates. Due to this, politicians jockey for public favour, which is especially prevalent during elections.
There are many ways to persuade the public that your ideas are the best path for the country or that you are the most credible candidate for the job (or, for adverts designed to attack your opponent rather than argue constructively, that your opponent has bad ideas or is corrupt and malicious). For example, politicians may rely on gut feelings or replicate previous successful campaigns (a campaign may be run on the Carvilleâs 1992 dictum: âitâs the economy, stupidâ). While these are viable options to guide campaigns, they are inherently faced with limitations and pitfalls. For starters, oneâs gut feeling can be all over the placeâespecially if the person has little or no contact or experience with the people he is trying to persuade or influence. Second, reliance on past successes is dangerous, as the present may not resemble the past to some degree (or, in some cases, entirely). Public opinion of a policy may change within a 4 or 5-year period due to changes in the world, emerging technologies, or other events that had not happened in the previous election campaigns (Brexit was an all-consuming issue in the 2017 UK election, but did naturally not feature in the 2015 election). Specific political problems come and go. Therefore, politicians may rely on broader lessons from previous campaigns such as economic growth, security, and public health systems. While specific policies may change, the fundamental needs appear fairly consistent. However, needs may change too. For example, while people were concerned with economic issues in 1992, the 2016 presidential election in the USA revolved around immigration (Pindell, 2018, see also Warner, 2015, see also Goodwin & Milazzo, 2017 on the role of immigration in the Brexit debate). As such, there is an inherent limitation to replicating past campaignsâespecially for specific policies, but even for more general needs and desires as well, as the weight of these can change over time.
To move away from intuitions and towards a more predictive picture of the electorate, campaigns are increasingly using data to run campaigns (Bimber, 2014; Hersch, 2015; Issenberg, 2012; Nielsen, 2012). To construct a realistic representation of a particular voter or a specific part of the electorate, campaigns may use different kinds of relevant data such as demographic information (e.g. age, income, gender), digital traces (e.g. social network size, search data, hashtags), and psychologically motivated data (e.g. personality traits, subjective beliefs, biases). Due to the proliferation of social media sites and data generated by companies and governments, data about populations and specific individuals is becoming more elaborate and potentially more available to campaigns (depending on campaign regulations).
Data can be used to generate statistics at the level of cities, states, and nations (e.g. the demographic spread in a province, past voter turnout, or number of polling stations for a district). Population-level data is useful to get a rough approximation of an area of the election but will say less about a specific individual who lives in that area. For example, Southwark (a borough in London) supported remaining in the EU in the 2016 referendum (72.8% voted to remain). If you picked a person at random, they are likely to be pro-EU. Population-level data enables campaigns to make increasingly educated guesses about the political leanings, the probability of voting, and so forth for a person chosen at random from that area. However, if you are interested in figuring out if a particular person voted to leave the EU, campaigners need to go beyond population-level data sets and seek information about specific voters.
To achieve this, campaigns may collect data related to individuals in addition to population-level data. Such data may enable the campaign to figure out factors that lead to a desired behaviour (e.g. what makes people vote for a particular candidate) and may provide insights into what makes that voter behave in desired ways. Thus, while population-level data can give information about a person picked at random from a segment of the population, personal data provides an increasingly clear picture of a specific person.
For example, the campaign might gain access to a personâs shopping habits. Here, they may learn that the person frequently buys organic food. In their model, organic products may be linked with an interest in environmental and health issues. If enough voters have these preferences and habits, the campaign may develop pro-environmental messages. Given more and more data about individuals, campaigns can sharpen their models of people and generate progressively specific models for the electorate where messages are designed to fit what the campaign believes is important to that segment of the population. The process of generating gradually personalised and segmented models of people and using this for persuasion efforts is known as micro-target campaigning. This book discusses how modellers can use psychological and demographic data to sharpen their models in political campaigns to win elections.
1.1 The Psychology of Persuading and Influencing People
Getting people to change their beliefs is tricky. It is insufficient and ineffective to provide arguments that the sender finds compelling. Instead, it requires the persuader to understand the beliefs, motivations, and subjective experiences of the persuadeeâto get inside the emotional and personal life of the listener to communicate with the personâs view of the world and psychological outlook. Ever since Plato rightly noted it is easy to praise Athens to an Athenian, people have recognised the need for understanding the audience as a means to persuasion. The rhetorician Kenneth Burke reflects this, as he argues persuasion comes through shared identification; to be able to walk a personâs walk and talk a personâs talk (Burke, 1969). Persuasion through identification can be used cynically or altruistically. Cynically, the speaker can present himself as having traits or beliefs that he actually does not hold to trick or deceive a listener. Altruistically, the speaker can use identification to better communicate earnestly held beliefs or positions. The Russell (1951) quote at the beginning of the chapter suggests that people who vie for public positions may portray themselves in dishonest ways to gain a persuasive advantage (either by endorsing beliefs they do not actually entertain, portraying themselves as having characteristics they do not possess, or by stating they have qualifications they do not have).1
Throughout history, our understanding of persuasion has steadily progressed from qualitative observations by ancient rhetoricians and philosophers to quantitative, psychologically informed models. Data can inform this understanding in two central ways. First, comparing qualitative or quantitative predictions with observed outcomes can help decide between competing models of persuasion. Second, if a model seems to appropriately predict how the electorate reacts to persuasive attempts, data can be used to parameterise and build the modelsâboth at the population level and at the level of the individual. Whether informed by qualitative observations of the electorate, repeated testing (e.g. A/B-testing) or through formal modelling, it is clear that peopleâs subjective perception of the world is a significant driving force for how they engage with information, perceive other people, and how (if at all) they change their beliefs given new information.
People entertain a wide range of beliefsâpolitically, ideologically, and about the world in general. Some people believe tax reductions for wealthy people trickle down and stimulate the economy for the wider po...