Confronting EU unpopularity: the contribution of political marketing

Abstract

Political marketing is making headway around the world. However, this development is not uniform in nature. Research to date into political marketing has offered limited insights into different national contexts and involves only the study of political parties or of particular political campaigns. Research into government policy-making and political marketing is also immature. The present analysis of political marketing and EU integration addresses this gap in the research. More specifically, following a deductive approach, this paper investigates whether EU policy-making conforms to the Lees-Marshment political organisation behaviour model, in particular, its market-orientation element. It argues that the decline in popular support for European integration is the result of a lack of market orientation in EU policy-making. Group social psychology is deemed to be at the root of public dissatisfaction with EU policy-making and the lack of market orientation of the latter. While pressure from voters (the market) should not feed directly into EU policy-making without any input from political organisations, public consultation on EU policy should take place at all stages of the policy process.

Keywords:

• political marketing
• European integration
• EU policy-making
• EU public opinion
• market orientation

Notes

An organisation following a product-orientation is primarily concerned with accommodating its own needs rather than those of its public. It therefore assumes that the public will, with minimum encouragement, support the organisation. An organisation pursuing a sales-orientation differs from one following a product-orientation by applying sustained efforts to persuade its public to back its policies. It often resorts to market research in order to reach this objective (Wring 1996, Kotler 2003).

The Irish electorate's rejection of the EU Reform Treaty in June 2008 – by 53.4% to 46.6% – was partly due to the lack of accessibility and transparency of the related Treaty. Other reasons such as the credit crunch, strength of the euro, concerns about national sovereignty and immigration have also played a role in this public snub (BBC News 2008, CBS News 2008).

The latest yes vote to the second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in October 2009 has not fundamentally altered the substance of this analysis. The same Lisbon Treaty has been presented to the Irish voters – the guarantees on taxation, family matters and military neutrality that the Irish government claimed to have obtained from the EU remain solely EU pledges not even appended to the Treaty itself. The economic context of the second referendum, that is to say Ireland's economic downfall and risk of total collapse, seems to largely explain the yes vote. This context has been successfully instrumentalised by the major Irish political parties as the only way to economic recovery and new jobs (BBC News 2009).

The subsidiarity principle indicates that action should only be taken by the community or Union if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at the European level.

In France, Italy, Spain and Germany, 76%, 77%, 68% and 55% of respondents, respectively, thought the euro had a negative impact on the country's economy (FT-Harris 2007a).

The identification of these orientations in political organisations precedes Lees-Marshment's work (see, for example, Smith and Saunders 1990). Lees-Marshment has though enhanced our understanding of how political organisations apply or can apply these orientations to electoral campaigning.

The latest European Election Survey (2009) moreover shows a growing convergence of European public opinion on key economic and societal issues beyond (social) class and ideological divides. This includes a strong cross-national public support for the use of referenda for EU Treaty changes.

Thus, for example, in the policy options exploration stage, creating experimental stimuli that represent varied policy options can be difficult.

Kotler (2003) refers to these as societal marketing. He (pp. 26–27) defined societal marketing as ‘determining the needs, wants and interests of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that preserves or enhances the consumer's and the society's well-being’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pierre P. Balestrini

Pierre P. Balestrini lectures in marketing at the University of Surrey, UK. He has a doctorate in Political Science and degrees in Economics and Marketing. His research interests and publications relate to European public opinion and political marketing. Before joining academia, Pierre has had a successful career in marketing.

Paul R. Gamble

Paul R. Gamble is an Emeritus Professor of European Business Management, former Head of School, who has published widely in the field of relationship marketing. Email: [email protected]