ABSTRACT
In a context where authorities are pressed worldwide to maintain a balance between ever growing demand for energy and resources and the preservation of natural areas (Aldrich 2008: 6), public infrastructure projects raising environmental concerns, such as nuclear installations or dams, have sparked off, in the last decades, a series of popular protest movements (Hudon et al. 2009). In most instances, protesters, increasingly reunited in amateur advocacy coalitions, have been quick to claim that they represent the general will and promote the common good with the objective of influencing decisions to be made. In this perspective, they have occasionally relied on political marketing techniques. In this chapter, we examine the extent and the form of political marketing techniques used
by advocacy coalitions, through five cases raising environmental concerns that took place in Quebec (Canada) over the recent decades back to the 1970s. First, we briefly develop our theoretical framework. Second, we introduce our five cases and sketch our methodology. Third, we analyze and compare the political marketing techniques used by each of the advocacy coalitions involved in our cases and assess their impacts in term of the coalitions’ legitimacy. Finally, we draw general lessons from our cases, and assess the impacts of political marketing on politics.
