ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a number of themes and issues concerning the style of modern party campaigning in Poland. The main part of the analysis is constituted by an examination of the three general elections held during the 1990s. There is no doubt that political marketing can be viewed as one of the interpreters of party contests. Thus, party strategies and tactics during the parliamentary campaigns of 1991, 1993 and 1997 can be examined and assessed in terms of a marketing framework. The advantage of this approach is that it structures explanations of the modernisation of campaign procedures in Poland within a comparative perspective, which in broad terms is common to all European liberal democracies. In the light of this comment, this chapter also gives due attention to inter-country differences. For reasons of space, I am deliberately limiting the scope of my analysis to the impact of political marketing upon party strategies, and to parallel analysis of Polish party campaign styles and tactics vis-à-vis those encountered in European Union (EU) states. Within that analysis the growing influence of marketing techniques first adapted by parties within the EU will be evaluated.
