Beyond Technology: A Comparative Literature Review of Campaign Context and Issues in three Countries

Abstract

Since Barack Obama’s campaign of 2008 and 2012, contemporary discourse and analysis of modern political communication have been variously and increasingly preoccupied with the analysis of the power of new technology-digital media platforms and algorithms as both the main ingredients and infrastructure for modern campaigns and electioneering. However, as important as these mediated tools and platforms have become, we argue that focus on context, ideas, issues, and campaign rhetoric is equally essential in making sense of factors that contribute in shaping and destabilizing elections and democracy. Drawing from an extensive review of campaign related literature in three countries and a constant comparative method of reading the literature, we illustrate such contextual issues, ideas and campaign rhetoric using examples from America, Britain and Nigeria. In all three examples, the literature reviewed highlight that context – i.e. socio-economic, cultural and political all compete to incentivizes and stimulate the formation of ideas and issues that dominate campaign and election cycles.

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JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE RESEARCH IN
ANTHROPOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
Copyright © The Author, 2021
Volume 12, Number 1, Autumn 2021
ISSN 2068 – 0317
http://compaso.eu
Beyond technology: A comparative literature review of campaign
context and issues in three countries
Thomas Chukwuma Ijere
1
Dodeye Uduak Williams
2
Abstract
Since Barack Obama’s campaign of 2008 and 2012, contemporary discourse and analysis of
modern political communication have been variously and increasingly preoccupied with the
analysis of the power of new technology-digital media platforms and algorithms as both
the main ingredients and infrastructure for modern campaigns and electioneering.
However, as important as these mediated tools and platforms have become, we argue that
focus on context, ideas, issues, and campaign rhetoric is equally essential in making sense
of factors that contribute in shaping and destabilizing elections and democracy. Drawing
from an extensive review of campaign related literature in three countries and a constant
comparative method of reading the literature, we illustrate such contextual issues, ideas
and campaign rhetoric using examples from America, Britain and Nigeria. In all three
examples, the literature reviewed highlight that context – i.e. socio-economic, cultural and
political all compete to incentivizes and stimulate the formation of ideas and issues that
dominate campaign and election cycles.
Keywords
Elections; Ideas; Issues and Context;
1
Center for Advanced Internet Studies, Bochum-Germany, ijere4real@yahoo.com.
2
Department of Political Science, University of Calabar, Calabar-Nigeria, williamsdodeye@yahoo.com.

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Introduction
Lately, dissimilar research from many fields is increasingly reflecting on the consequences
that digitization has on contemporary society and democracy. Although the bulk of
research that has emerged is increasingly questioning earlier notions of ‘liberation
technology’, digitization-platforms and algorithms remain important in shaping the digital
public sphere (Miller & Vaccari, 2020). While the bulk of this work remains important to the
field, scholars such as Kreiss and McGregor (2021) argue that time and attention need to
also be given to ‘growing anti-democratic extremist threats’, especially from political elites.
Whilst it is necessary to debate the ethics of digital political advertising and tech
reform as ways of saving democracy, it is also important to identify, flag and call out
country specific anti-democratic views, ideas and the elite/political party led campaign
rhetoric, that is contributing in destabilizing democracy and society. Indeed, while the field
and sub-field of disinformation has remained ‘relatively silent about questions of identity,
motivation, labor and morality’ (Ong & Cabanes, 2019), Kreiss and McGregor (2021) argue
that ‘technology does not create’ views, ideas or campaign rhetoric, it is the ideologies’
that political actors and political parties ‘espouse or the discourses they express’ that travel
on mediated platforms during campaign and election (Paget, 2021). According to Adams
and Kreiss (2021) embedded structural factors such as ‘social sorting, high choice media and
environments, partisan media, and campaigns’ also serve as ‘origins of affective polarization’.
Thus, ‘how ideas are formed, legitimated and spread and how they become influential’ is also
important for contemporary political communication research (ibid).
For example, ideas, issues and views transmitted by digitization to an increasingly
enlarging digital public sphere – i.e. inequality, global warming and environmental
devastation, identities, religion, racism, population growth and mass migration driven
cultural backlash, new nationalism and right and left-wing populism, rising insecurity and
ethno-nationalism, have all contributed in driving polarization, shaping campaign rhetoric
and election outcome in many countries (Davies, 2019). For example, in America, ‘Donald
Trump has been President’ and then the Capitol was attacked. In Britain, the Conservative
Party won its first majority in 23 years in 2015 and have now led the country out of the
European Union (EU). Across Europe and Africa, ‘established political parties have been
shaken as new political parties and leaders have emerged and won power in France, Italy’
Nigeria and Zambia. Similarly, ‘neo-fascist political groups are gaining in popularity across the
US and Europe’ (Davies et al., 2020).
As an explanation for these events and election outcome, scholars and
commentators have blamed new technologies of political communication (Persily &
Tucker, 2020). Campaigns, they argue, now rely on ‘state of the art’ technology and new
technological advancements in the designing of political marketing, voter identification,
persuasion and demobilization-with strategies that are data driven, technology intensive,
digitally enabled and personalized (Johnson, 2017). In the United States for example, the
literature points to the uptake of innovative new practices in campaigning, incentivized by
new media and new technology as the driving infrastructure for modern campaigns and
voting battle techniques (Kreiss, 2016; Johnson, 2017).

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
13
In the United Kingdom, even though the longstanding ‘native British history of
campaigning’ (Scammell, 1995) continues to surface in modern elections, scholars also
suggest that new media technology, digitization and data driven insight is causing and
inspiring shifts in political advertising, voter identification, targeting and mobilization
(Cowley & Kavanagh, 2015; Anstead, 2017). In Nigeria, recent research also suggest that
new media technology and digitization is changing and reshaping the structure, methods
and face of contemporary electioneering and broadening Nigeria’s fault lines of ethnicity
and religion (Okeke et al., 2016; Dunu, 2018).
This growing and transnational impact of technology as the new frontier for
advancing modern political campaigns notwithstanding, Davies et al. (2020) argue that it is
also important to consider ‘the centrality of politics’ in the analysis of modern political
campaigns, since ‘political life is, now more than ever, infused with symbolic practices and
communicative dynamics’. Thus, while ‘relationships between media institutions and
political institutions reflect the relationships between politicians and journalists, messages
produced and disseminated by political actors, messages produced and disseminated by
media actors, national audiences and their news consumption patterns’, and ‘effects of
political communication on citizens and societies’ continue to importantly shape research
(Esser & Pfetsch, 2020), exploring context, ideas, issues and campaign rhetoric that shape
modern election cycles can unveil the socio-political, economic and cultural dynamics that
incentivize how political parties and candidates communicate with the electorate and, how
these in-turn flow into mediated tools and media narratives. Indeed, uncertainty in the
global political landscape makes this strand of academia relevant for the field (Davies et al.,
2020). Understanding the types of politics that are communicated on mediated platforms
‘are undoubtedly key questions’ in unpacking the disinformation crisis (ibid).
Thus, while the study of technology – i.e. social media platforms and algorithms
remain important, understanding the ‘broader socio-political and economic systems are
also becoming fundamental (Davies et al., 2020). In this way, the ‘focus on media logics’ can
be reversed or rebalanced with more emphasis given to politics – i.e. the politics, ideas and
issues that shape modern campaign and election cycles. As recent events in America,
Britain, Brazil, Nigeria and Venezuela have shown, ideas matter for political actors and
government, and it the ideas that political actors and government communicate or seek to
communicate that flow into and on the digital public sphere. Indeed, like technology,
‘larger social trends’ and shifts in economy, politics and institutions are shaping modern
campaign and election outcomes in many democracies (Bennett & Pfetsch, 2018; Davies,
2019). This article seeks to highlight those as a way of increasing the discussion and
research that covers the importance of context.
Methodology
Methodologically, this article draws on an extensive review of campaign related literature
and a constant comparative method (Barbour, 2008) of reading the literature to highlight
socio-political and economic issues that contributed in shaping recent campaign in three
elections in three countries: America (2016), Britain and Nigeria 2015 respectively. As an

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14
approach, the constant comparative method can be used to identify patterns, similarities
and differences within data, cases or literature (Barbour, 2008). Although much of the
literature relating to the constant comparative method assumes that codes are used, this
is not necessarily the case. In developing the method used in this study, a thorough
literature review that involved constantly comparing evidence from empirical and technical
literature and insider accounts on the three campaigns was used, in order to identify the
themes discussed in sections 4, 5, and 6. As examples, the three countries and elections
chosen as case studies have been selected for pragmatic reasons based on events and the
election outcome, and the dearth of research in sub-Saharan Africa makes the Nigerian
example important (Moghadam, 1995; O’Kane, 1995; Gerring, 2004). As the case studies
for the analysis, the three countries and elections selected have been chosen and
constructed for producing evidence and instances that represent our argument.
Elections and campaign: Ideas and issues in three countries
According to Ballarino and Regini (2008), a link exists between the economic situation of a
country and the social-political action. Scholars argue that a country’s socio-political and
economic situation during an election can drive election dynamics, shape debates and
blame game which is of fundamental importance in determining candidates and political
party electoral fortunes (Eichenberg et al., 2006). Key events according to Esser and
Stromback (2012) can serve as ’situational triggers for the strategic priming and framing’ of
campaign messages. Thus, political campaigns ’function as a filter to mediate the impact of
events’ and echo those during campaigns to help voters form an opinion (Costa, 2012).
Following Swanson (2004), Moser and Scheiner (2012) realized the need to consider socio-
economic and political context where campaign and political messages are framed since
they contribute to shaping both practices and outcome, sections 4, 5 and 6 below highlight
dominant themes that emerged in the literature on the American, British and Nigerian
context, and the socio-political and economic issues that contributed in shaping all three
countries campaigns and elections in 2016 and 2015 respectively. This paper provides a
comparative insight by identifying contextual issues and ideas that shaped the politics, the
campaign rhetoric and the messages that flowed into the digital public sphere. Although
the three countries are institutionally different, Britain is a parliamentary system, while
America and Nigeria are presidential systems. Despite these institutional differences, the
value of the analysis rest in its revelation of contextual conditions and how understanding
of such context can help us explain what issues or ideas shape recent campaigns and
election cycles and how such issues and ideas flow into media narratives and mediated
platforms.
The 2016 US presidential election: Issues and socio-political and economic context
On the 8th of November 2016, the United States of America voted to elect Donald Trump
the 45th President-with an Electoral College majority of 306 to defeat Hilary Clinton with
232 irrespective of Clinton’s majority vote that was in excess of 3 million (see table 1).

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
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Table 1. 2016 National popular vote share
Source: AP-After 99.7% of voting districts
Arising from the unexpected and surprising election, commentators and scholars
across diverse backgrounds, produced an array of explanations. Among the contextual
issues that dominated the campaign, Fuchs (2018) pointed, for example towards President
Trump’s emphasis on ‘racial proletarianism’ as his pathway to electoral victory – where a
well-crafted distraction of attention from ‘complex societal and political-economic causes of
crises is employed by constructing scapegoats and preaching nationalism and law-and-order
politics’.
Although the trend highlighted above by Fuchs transcends American politics.
Indeed, nationalist political framing apart from helping to elect President Trump has
increased and produced electoral fortunes in many countries – where among other things-
integration of ethnic minorities, immigration and mass migration, border control, Islamic
related terrorism etc. have dominated as the ‘most heated political issues’ (Norris &
Inglehart, 2019). Thus, Fuchs argument on Trump’s campaign approach is that the
‘mythology of unity and identity’ is the political instrument deployed to present ‘a common
instinctual fate between the bourgeois and the proletarianised groups’, and it is such ideas
that were communicated and transmitted in the digital public sphere (ibid).
That said, evidence from the literature also suggest that such nationalist and
populist framing alone cannot be blamed for incentivizing the anti-establishment rhetoric
that helped get Donald Trump elected. As Springer (2016) argues, the global political
economy – ‘structural adjustment, fiscal austerity and free trade, augmented by direct
military force, a marriage of the ‘invisible hand’ or the free market with the ‘visible fist’ of
US military and its allies served in feeding the US political climate. Thus, as Springer notes,
in discussing factors that contributed to Donald Trump’s election, they should be an
appreciation of the capacity of neoliberalism to ‘promote inequality, exacerbate poverty,
license authoritarianism and advance a litany of social ‘ills that reinforces anti-establishment’
rhetoric like those framed by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. Timcke (2017)
argues for example, that because of the central place of the US and its allies in the
international political economy’, they cannot be exculpated from the consequences of the
Presidential
Candidate
Political Party
Vote Share
Percentage
Electoral
College
Trump
Republican
61,201,031 votes
47.0%
306
Clinton
Democratic
62,523,126 votes
48.0%
232
Others
6,464,094 votes
5.0%

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crisis. As Fuchs (2018) argues, it is the economic crisis of capitalism that has turned into a
highly dangerous political crises in Europe and the world system, where nationalism and
the friend/enemy logic are rapidly spreading and expanding’ in modern political discourse
and campaign rhetoric (ibid).
Perhaps, it might be fair to add, that the market as the arguments above suggest
may not be working for everyone, even though they have been ‘spectacular economic
growth in most part of the capitalist core’ (Basu, 2018). As Basu shows, global electoral
upset like the election of Donald Trump is an indication of how ‘economic crisis has morphed
into a political crisis, with authoritarian populist figures marshalling people’s anger and fear
into nationalist projects’ (ibid). Nevertheless, such critique of market base neoliberal
economics does not suggest that the left has a functional and all-fit argument or solution.
At best, the debate by leftists has remained ‘confined to questions of inequality and
redistribution’, without concrete proposals of how to create or reconstruct ‘socialist
productive economies’ (Desai, 2019). Nevertheless, Basu’s concern is that the media, rather
than presenting the economic crisis narrative, have been caught up in an ‘acute amnesia’
preferring to stick with its root in the dynamics of free market capitalism and ‘devotion to
a narrative of swollen public sector and immigration’.
Furthermore, scholars also suggest that long-term structural transformations in the
US political system benefited Donald Trump and disadvantaged Hilary Clinton. For
example, Frank (2016) suggests that elitist changes in the form of support of the
professional class instead of the working class in the Democratic Party is one of such socio-
political transformation in the US political landscape. On the Republican side, Kabaservice
(2016) argues that the decline of moderates in the GOP has also augmented voices like
Trump’s, even though there are now governance and political challenges that have
accompanied the party’s presidential election victory of 2016.
Elsewhere, Norris (2016) and Norris and Ingelhart (2019) argue that growing
economic and social exclusion sit at the heart of the recent rise in populism, with ‘losers
from globalisation’, the ‘forgotten American’ – providing the ‘strongest support for
authoritarian and populist values’ that incentivized voices like Trump (p.132). Perhaps, as
Andrew Carnegie (1889) wrote, ‘the problem of our age is that of proper administration of
wealth’. Thus, as Nye (2019) suggest, ‘policy elites who support globalization and an open
economy may have to pay more attention to issues of economic inequality as well as to
adjusted assistance for those disrupted by economic change’ since these issues now
contribute to how voters respond to politics.
That said, whilst populist political narrative continues to swell, institutions of liberal
democracy seem to have mitigated and limited manifestations of authoritarian tendencies
in some countries. Thus, the critical views on populism and populist leaders
notwithstanding, Stavrakakis (2018) suggests that we consider, in our reading of populism,
that ‘its inclusionary form can be a corrective’ for democracies that are losing their
egalitarian and participatory component.
In another strand of literature, Trump’s victory in the 2016 election is said to also be
rooted in cultural changes that metamorphosed into ‘cultural grievances’ and the
exploitation of ‘cultural wedge issues – race, gender, religion and nation’ in ways that

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
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resonated strongly with some part of the electorate because of the generational contrast
in cultural attitude (Norris & Inglehart, 2019). In Norris and Inglehart’s view, President
Trump’s election ‘can best be explained as cultural backlash’. Norris (2016) even suggests
that ’by giving voice to, and amplifying fears of cultural change’, Trump and the Republicans
opened the way for populism in the US. Fuchs (2018) argues that recourse to such populist
rhetoric apart from the electoral advantage it conferred the GOP, amount to a classic
distraction from the class conflict that continue to shape modern capitalism. For Zizek
(2017), such rhetoric, as events in large parts of Western politics suggest, demonstrates a
surprising shift to humanitarian issues and refugees – a literal repression, and replacement
of class struggles with ‘liberal-cultural topics of intolerance and solidarity’. Perhaps, ‘the
fundamental source’ of modern ‘conflict’ as predicted by Huntington (1993) is now along
‘cultural’ lines.
In another explanation, Oliver and Rahn (2016) point to culture, ‘ideological shifts,
party polarization and rightist evolution in the Republican Party that began with President
Richard Nixon’s appeal to southern conservatives’ as the electoral ingredient that came to
favor Donald Trump. Historically, Neumann (1957) has shown for example, how anxiety in
groups who feel disenfranchised and economically threatened tend to more likely support
authoritarian and right-wing perspectives. Thus, Trump as Mutz (2018) and Klein (2020)
suggest, may have capitalized on the rise of identity politics and the politics of ‘marginalised
groups’ as well as the decline in social status of white America to advance the politics of
resentment, alienation and distributional challenges during the 2016 campaign. Fuchs
(2018) argues, for example that Breitbart-news, articles and Stephen Bannon all served as
suppliers of such ‘coherent, incoherent and intolerant world view’ to the Trump campaign
to help get him elected.
As Fuchs (2018) pointed out, readership of Breitbart for example increased from 7.4
million to 15.8 million between 2014 and September 2016. Similarly, Boczkowski and
Papacharissi (2018), Block and Negrine (2018), Norris and Inglehart (2019), Oliver and Rahn
(2016) all point to such rising polarization and partisanship in the media, social media troll
farms and bots, the impact of mediated disinformation, Trump’s news making ability – i.e.
‘populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences’ and the rise in conspiracy
theories as factors that may have influenced the campaign and 2016 election.
In what may sound like a racial interpretation of the election of President Trump,
Norris (2016) also suggests that Trump’s victory can also be interpreted as a backlash
reaction to the election and re-election of the first African American president to the White
House and public anger against the deep state-with such rhetoric resonating with ’older
and non-college educated white men who felt threatened by ‘liberal cultural currents’.
In other commentaries, explanations like the death of ‘old politics’-‘radicalization of
anti-intellectualism’ (Kayam, 2018); crisis of confidence and legitimacy in US government or
what Short (2016) calls ‘politics of de-legitimacy’; candidate and party issue position – i.e.
the political power of identity, identity partisan alignment, race, immigration and religion
(Sides et al., 2019); money, press coverage, rating boosting screen dominance in both less
partisan and right-wing media ecosystem, and political communication practice/ strategy –
the use of ‘anti-intellectual rhetoric’ (Beckett, 2016; Kayam, 2018; Norris & Inglehart, 2019);

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‘Trump’s personal brilliant use of social media to control the news agenda’ (Nye, 2019); his
celebrity appeal, the fan feeling he created, the mood of the electorate and his reflection
of the American voter ‘ideological narcissism’ (Negra, 2016; Richards, 2016; Wahl-Jorgensen,
2019); Hillary Clinton’s emails controversy, Wikileaks and James Comey’s unprecedented
and controversial statement in the final days of the campaign (Edge, 2017); institutional
rules – i.e. the Electoral College; ‘deindustrialization’ and declining wages as well as the
Democratic Party’s campaign failure to invest sufficiently in ‘Blue Wall of Rust Belt states’
(Short, 2016; Norris & Inglehart (2019), where according to Norris and Inglehart, a mere
77,744 switch in votes in the States of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania would have
made Hillary Clinton president are identified as other factors that may have contributed to
the election of Donald J. Trump.
Furthermore, considering the role of the Kremlin in the 2016 election, Ijere (2020)
suggests that ‘apart from modernization or innovation in data driven technology enhanced
campaign practices-enabled by Cambridge Analytica and Strategic Communication
Laboratories (SCL Group) psychological profiling of American voters, the 2016 election of
President Trump can also be perceived as a digitally influenced, manipulated propaganda
product of Russia’s contemporary active measures.
Thus, as the commentary from the literature highlighted above indicate, discussion
on the impact of technology in the 2016 election of President Donald Trump must also
account for the socio-political and economic context, issues, ideas and international
politics that shaped the election cycle. Indeed, while technology remains important for
campaigning, the 2016 US campaign cycle provides revelatory potential of the importance
of context in understanding modern election campaign and outcome.
The 2015 British election: Socio-economic and political context
Held on the 7th of May 2015 to elect 650 members of parliament after a five-year fixed term
parliament, 3, 971 candidates stood for the elections. Amidst speculation of another hung
parliament and minority or coalition government, the election ushered in an unpredicted
majority for the Conservative Party ‘with 331 seats, 232 for Labour, 56 for the SNP, with the
Liberal Democrats winning 8 seats and losing 49’ (Electoral Commission, 2016a; Rose &
Shephard, 2016; Hawkins et al., 2015). The first clear majority for the Tories in 23 years. Table
5.2 is a summary of result and vote share.
As Table 2 shows, multiparty politics is the norm in Britain. However, governance
has traditionally been associated with the two major political parties (i.e. Labour and the
Conservative) with fluctuating electoral fortunes for the Liberal Democrats (Denver &
Hands, 2001; Forman & Baldwin, 2007).
That said, developments in British political communication have followed the
trajectory chronicled by Jay Blumler and Denis Kavanagh (1999) in their three ages of
political communication – where in the first age, political communication ‘was subordinate
to relatively strong and stable political institutions and beliefs; a second stage of shifting
party loyalties – where television was the dominant medium of political communication,
and the third age of media abundance – where a proliferation of channels of

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
19
communication now dominate – with intensified professionalizing, increase competitive
pressures and anti-elitist populist practices’.
Table 2. 2015 Election result
S/N
Party
Votes
Percentage
Seats won
Gains
Losses
1.
Conservative
11, 291, 248
27.7%
331
35
10
2.
Labour
9, 347, 326
31.3%
232
22
48
3.
Lib Dems
2, 415, 888
8.1%
8
0
48
4.
UKIP
3, 862, 805
12.%
1
1
0
5.
Green
1 150, 791
3.8%
1
0
0
6.
Plaid Cymru
181, 694
0.6%
3
0
0
7.
SNP
1, 454, 436
4.9%
56
50
0
8.
Others
275, 919
0.9%
18
0
0
Curled from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/elections2015/results
In the literature, scholars trace these stages and historical chronology in Britain
from 1945 to 1997, where elements like spin and spin doctors, political consultancy, the
permanent campaign, canvassing, targeting, branding, opinion polling, advertising,
negative attacks and trends towards ‘presidentialization’ etc. became popular (Bartle &
Griffiths, 2001; Denver & Garnett, 2014; Jones, 1996; Mughan, 2000; Norris, 1997; 2001).
Although, since then, sustained changes have taken place in the national context –
i.e. in constituency campaigning, election administration and voting (Norris, 1997). Until
recently, however, there has been continuity in the ‘evolutionary adaptability of British
institutions, history, parliamentary sovereignty, nature of the state, as well as the underlying
cohesion of the society and degree of political agreement on fundamental issues’ (Kavanagh
& Morris, 1994; Forman & Baldwin, 2007; Denver & Garnett, 2014). Nevertheless, Norris and
Inglehart (2019) argue that the consequences of the 2015 election-Brexit referendum and
the cultural backlash that has followed signaled a new era in British politics.
That said, the 2015 general election came at the back of the 2010 election that ended
New Labour’s 16-year prominence in British politics (Cowley & Kavanagh, 2015). Fought on
a number of issues – the economy, the NHS, immigration, foreign policy, education, party
leaders, defence, and permutations about Labour v SNP coalition (Jackson & Thorsen, 2015;
Moore, 2015; Scammell, 2015), recent post-election events, particularly – the in/ out
referendum on Britain’s European Union membership and the controversy that trailed the
result suggest that it remains one of Britain’s defining elections in history (Rose &
Shephard, 2016).
The number of issues that dominated notwithstanding, the economy, taxation and
Labour’s role in the deficit and the 2008 economic crisis were topical (Deacon et al., 2015;
Roberts, 2015; Salter, 2015). Butler and Stoke (1974) suggest that the state of the economy
as the responsibility of any governing party in Britain has been the basis of dialogue
between British political parties and the electorate, with the ‘decline and ‘recovery’ of both
Labour and the Conservative Party in the 50s, 60s, and 70s traceable to their responsibility
to the state of the economy (Deacon et al., 2015).

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Furthermore, commentary in the literature also points towards press partisanship
and negative attacks – similar to those launched on Neil Kinnock in the 1992 general
election (Mullen 2015), money – the Tories war chest – an overwhelming 41% share of the
entire amount spent by all political parties as factors that may have influenced the outcome
of the 2016 election (Beckett, 2016b; Electoral Commission campaign spending report,
2016). Although British campaign rules (i.e. the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act
1883; Representation of the People Act 1983 (RPA), and the Political Parties Election and
Referendum Act 2000 (PPERA)) constrain excessive campaign spending (Castle, 2015; Law
Library of Congress, 2019). In past elections for example, Norris (1997) found a ‘relationship
between level of campaign spending in a constituency and a party’s local vote’ share (Norris,
1997).
In the 2015 Labour Party post-election autopsy report for example, Margaret
Beckett and her team conceded that the party’s financial position, as well as the ‘two
against one’ dynamic; fixed term parliament; cultural and economic backlash and the rise
of challenger parties like UKIP; and failure to frame a clear political message and narrative
was a challenge in competing with the Tories central operation and digital campaign
(Beckett, 2016).
Furthermore, commentary on dominant issues in the 2015 election also suggest that
decreasing youth participation and increase in turnout of the 65+ (78% vs 43%) who
predominantly voted Conservative partly contributed to the election outcome (Hawkins et
al., 2015; Sloam, 2015). Historically, Butler and Stokes (1974) argue that the ‘generational
effect’ (Butler & Stokes, 1974), growing affluence, weakening of class alignment, and
decline of politics as a zero-sum game represent some of Britain’s most remarkable
electoral changes. Sloam (2015) also argue that among all the 15 member states of the
European Union, evidence from recent elections suggest that the United Kingdom’s youth
elections turnout has been ‘lowest in 2001, 2005 and 2010’. According to Norris and Inglehart
(2019), such generational election ‘turnout gap has grown over time’ in many Western
democracies and serve as contributory factors in shaping election outcome. Thus, beyond
it being an internet election as commentators suggested, contextual issues, socio-political
and economic factors contributed in shaping the 2015 British election campaign.
Socio-political and economic context of the 2015 presidential elections in Nigeria
The 2015 presidential election in Nigeria was dominated by many contextual issues.
Although as Table 3 below indicates, significant voter apathy that accompanied the
election notwithstanding, the significance of socio-political and economic issues and
context rest on the fact that ‘voter mobilization was essentially around ethnicity, religion
and region, with northerners basically voting for a northern candidate, likewise the south-
south and south-east-with the south-west vs northern alliance electing the president’ (Ijere,
2020). Drawing from the literature reviewed, three dominant contextual themes will be
discussed below.

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21
Table 3. 2015 Presidential elections result: Candidates and political parties
S/N
Candidate/Nominee
Running Mate
Political Party
Party
Acronym
Votes Received
1.
Allagoa Chinedu
Arabamhen Mary
Peoples Party of
Nigeria
PPN
24,475
2.
Ambrose Albert
Owuru
Haruna Shaba
Hope Party
HOPE
7,435
3.
Adebayo Musa
Ayeni
Anthony
Ologbosere
African Peoples
Alliance
APA
53,537
4.
Chekwas Okorie
Bello Umar
United Progressive
Party
UPP
18,220
5.
Comfort Oluremi
Sonaiya
Seidu Bobboi
KOWA Party
KOWA
13,076
6.
Ganiyu Galadima
Ojengbede Farida
Allied Congress
Party of Nigeria
ACPN
40,311
7.
Godson Okoye
Haruna Adamu
United Democratic
Party
UDP
9,208
8.
Goodluck Jonathan
Namadi Sambo
People's Democratic
Party
PDP
12,853,162
9.
Mani Ahmad
Obianuju Murphy-
Uzohue
African Democratic
Congress
ADC
29,666
10.
Martin Onovo
Ibrahim
Mohammed
National Conscience
Party
NCP
24,455
11.
Muhammadu Buhari
Yemi Osinbajo
All Progressives
Congress
APC
15,424,921
12.
Rufus Salawu
Akuchie Cliff
Alliance for
Democracy
AD
30,673
13.
Sam Eke
Hassana Hassan
Citizens Popular
Party
CPP
36,300
14.
Tunde Anifowose-
Kelani
Ishaka Ofemile
Accord Alliance
AA
22,125
Invalid/
blank
votes
844,519
Total
29,432,083
Registered
voters/
turnout
67,422,005
43.65%
Source: INEC 2015
The emergence of an opposition coalition
Among the contextual issues that contributed to shaping the 2015 presidential election is
the emergence of an opposition coalition. Historically, opposition groups have always
existed in Africa even under single party and military regimes that dominated post-
independent African politics (Olukoshi, 1998). However, the emergence of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) in February 2013 from a merger of four political parties altered
the 2015 political landscape and contest by weakening the 16 years hegemony of the

Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, Volume 12, Number 1, Autumn 2021
22
Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). In a country where ethnic, religious, and regional
cleavages tend to militate against the creation of formidable opposition, the quest for
power by a set of political elites and the prevailing socio-political situation in the country at
the time, may have occasioned the formation and consolidation of the APC (Oyugi, 2006).
Although with very blurred lines of ideological differences in comparison with the then
ruling party the PDP, the formation of the APC largely influenced the context and contest
of the 2015 elections through the emergence of a cross-regional alignment of a set of
politicians and elites who were united against incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan
(Abdullahi, 2018).
In the literature on ethno-national politics for example, scholars like Koter (2013)
point to the relevance of shared ethnic identity between political actors and the electorate
as a mechanism for electoral mobilization. According to Owen and Usman (2015) the elite
alignment, defection of five PDP Governors, 37 House of Representative members to the
APC, including the Speaker of the House of Representative and 11 Senators and the
eventual victory of the APC in the 2015 presidential elections demonstrates the political and
electoral value of a national coalition in election campaign. As Abdullahi (2018) argues, the
‘decampees’ from the PDP ‘supplied the blood that gave life’ to the newly formed APC
turning it into a formidable opposition and national party. For Jideonwo and Williams
(2018), Muhammadu Buhari ‘needed the APC to have been created for him to win’, having
unsuccessfully attempted to be president on three occasions on the platform of a relatively
unknown regional political party the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
Insecurity
Insecurity – Boko Haram insurgency in the north east, and communal clashes between
farmers and herders in north central Nigeria was a dominant campaign issue. The influence
of the security crisis was so strong that it provided reasons for the federal government to
postpone the elections for six weeks (Orji, 2014). Significantly, the insecurity and the
BringBackOurGirls campaign whose hashtag trended globally as a result of the kidnap of
270 schoolgirls in Chibok, Bornu State had a damaging effect on the government’s
reputation (Hamalai et al., 2017). The inability to solve the Boko Haram problem became a
sentiment that resonated with many Nigerians and exploited by the opposition who sold
Jonathan to the public as ‘unfit, uncaring and inept’ (Adeniyi, 2017). For President Jonathan
and his party the PDP, convincing Nigerians during the campaign that he was the man to
be trusted with the nation’s security became a herculean task (Abdullahi, 2018). As analysts
like Adeniyi (2017) and Ewi (2015) argue, Buhari’s victory in 2015 was handed to him by
Jonathan’s unpopularity occasioned by the nation’s insecurity challenges and the way
Jonathan’s administration responded to it. Ayanda and Udunayo (2015) also suggest that
the national security situation affected voter turnout with less than 30 million of the
registered 67 million voters electing the president.
Ibrahim et al. (2015) argue that voter apathy and the reduction in the number of
votes was due to fear and insecurity. As the figures show, turnout in the election was the
lowest since the presidential elections of 1979. For example, of the 67,422,005 registered

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
23
voters, only 29,432,083 voted (ibid). Africa’s electoral outcomes it is argued are in part,
affected by ‘fear of violence and voter intimidation’ that usually diminish voter turnout
(Mac-Ikemenjima, 2017). Indeed, while voter apathy may have contributed to shaping the
2015 presidential election outcome, maximum turnout of the registered voters could have
also produced a different outcome. As Africa’s emerging democracies evolve, it is hoped
that both governments, political parties and their established democratic partners will
work to improve election security and voter turnout.
The candidates, scandals and the economy
As important as the factors highlighted above were, the literature also suggest that the
candidates mattered in the 2015 elections (Jideonwo & Williams, 2017). For the APC and its
coalition of regional elites, Muhammadu Buhari represented a better symbol of change,
irrespective of his previous leadership role as a military head of state from 1983-1985. For
his handlers and branders, he represented the candidate of the moment and was
presented as an incorruptible retired general who will guarantee security and prosperity
(ibid).
Arguments on economic growth and development statistics were also a factor in
the election debate. As Owen and Usman (2015) show, for the ruling PDP, the economy
was at its best and was the largest in Africa having grown consistently between 6-7% from
2008 to 2014. According to the PDP campaign team, claims that the economy was
struggling was a direct distortion of facts targeted at hitting a political goal (Omokri, 2017).
Despite the impressive economic growth statistics, poverty, inequality and youth
unemployment remained a key feature of the 2015 socio-economic landscape and these
indicators were at the back of high oil revenue and the APC kept pointing at those (ibid).
On corruption claims, Adeniyi (2017) suggests that the opposition APC had pointed
to President Jonathan’s mismanagement of fuel subsidy funds, the revelation of a former
Central Bank Governor that USD 48.9 billion of oil receipts could not be accounted for, as
well as a presidential pardon granted a former governor who jumped bail in the United
Kingdom having been held for money laundering as proves that the president condones
corruption. In his response, the President’s claim was that ‘corruption was as old as
independent Nigeria’ and every successive government has fought corruption including his
(Jonathan, 2018). According to Adeniyi (2017) the president’s response and disposition on
these issues gave room for an unfavorable interpretation of his stand on corruption and
contributed to his unpopularity. As Brian et al. (2014) note, voters usually make electoral
choices based on a retrospective assessment of incumbents and perceived malfeasance by
incumbents usually provoke voters to punish tainted incumbents electorally. Owen and
Usman (2015) argue that this was the case with President Jonathan in 2015, as scandals and
governance failure provided the opposition with ‘sufficient ammunition’ and ‘turned the
tide of public opinion against’ his government.
That said, whilst new media technology and digitization continue to change and
reshape the electoral landscape in Nigeria, what the literature above suggests as Swanson
and Mancini (1996), argue, is that election campaigns ‘are complicated subjects and what

Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, Volume 12, Number 1, Autumn 2021
24
happens within them usually reflect the coming together of opportunity, circumstance,
tradition, personality, political culture’ and several other factors. Thus, ‘situational triggers’
continue to matter for elections and electioneering (Esser & Stromback, 2012). Therefore,
as historic as the defeat of the PDP and the victory of opposition APC was, beyond the role
of technology – i.e. social media platforms, a combination of factors seem to account for
both the campaign and election outcome.
Conclusion
This article has assessed the socio-political and economic issues in three countries and how
these factors contributed in shaping campaign rhetoric, the campaigns, the political
communication environment and election outcome. In doing so, it seeks to account for
context and the socio-political and economic order and dynamics that shapes elections as
a call for research that elevates the political as well as the technological in modern political
communication analysis.
That said, taken together, and from the point of view of contribution to the
literature, even though variations in context and issues exist in all three countries and three
elections, the revelation of such contextual variation adds socio-cultural, political and
institutional dimensions to the discussion on the role of technology in modern campaigns.
A cross-case pattern-matching of the literature from the three case studies above point to
underlying differences in context and issues. While the contextual landscape and issues in
America and the United Kingdom suggest a pattern of sophistication associated with
advanced democracies – with nationalist political framing, the economy, economic
exclusion and immigration shaping campaign, the contextual environment and issues in
Nigeria – opposition coalition, insecurity, the economy and corruption scandals point to
indices of an emerging democracy that is building party and governance institutions.
In conclusion, the main point this article makes, is that while research that prioritizes
the impact of technology on contemporary campaign and political communication is
important, elevating research that explores the current global socio-political and economic
climate – whether comparatively or as single country studies, is important for the field.
Although as the literature in all three examples indicates, every country’s campaigns and
elections have their own complexity. However, as Gurevitch and Blumler (1990) argue, the
beauty of such contextual understanding lies in the fact that it is the context that either
promotes or constrains political communication practices within countries. Thus, beyond
technology and its increasing impact in modern campaigns and electioneering, context-
cultural, socio-political and economic matter for campaigns and elections as well, and an
understanding of such country specific context can help us explain what ideas shape
campaign and election cycles and how such ideas and issues flow into media narratives and
mediated platforms.

Ijere & Williams / Beyond technology
25
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Dr. Thomas Chukwuma Ijere is currently a fellow at the Centre for Advanced Internet
Studies, Bochum, Germany where he is researching ‘ethics of digital political advertising
in modern British elections. He holds a B.Sc in Political Science and two master’s degrees
from the University of Calabar and the University of Sussex-in Policy and Administrative
Studies and Governance and Development respectively and a PhD in Political
Communication from Northumbria University, UK. Dr. Ijere is a former Adam Smit Fellow
and recipient of Northumbria University doctoral studentship. His current work focuses
comparative political communication, the politics of disorder, information control and
patterns of content circulation in the digital public sphere particularly in the global south.
Dr. Dodeye Uduak Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science, University of Calabar, Nigeria. She holds a B.Sc in Political Science (Unical), M.Sc
International Relations (UNN) , MA Global Security (Sheffield, UK) and a PhD in
International Relations (Unical). She is an academic with over 20 years work experience.
Dr. Williams is a former Commonwealth Scholar (2008-2009) Edinburgh, UK). She has
published several academic articles in reputable journals and contributed several book
chapters. Her current research interests tend to interrogate the complexities of the
phenomena of politics, terrorism, violent extremism, counter terrorism and extremism
in Africa. She is also currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Gender Studies,
College of Human Sciences, University of South Africa, UNISA.