Americanization of Political Campaigns: a Comparison of the Cases of Forza Italia and the Young Party

Abstract

Similar to political institutions and structures, political campaigns have also undergone dramatic transformations. The Americanization of political campaigns, which are characterized by certain peculiarities, such as the personalization of politics, weakening of party organizations, wide use of media channels in the political marketing process, need for specialization, primacy of opinions over ideologies and conceptualization of citizens as policy consumers, is a by-product of these dramatic transformations. This paper aims to compare Forza Italia and the Young Party through the Americanization of political campaigns with special emphasis on the connection between the transformation of political campaigns and the crisis of representative democracy.