Teaching an Old World New Tricks

Policy Study

Following the seminar “Campaigning for the Future and the Future of Campaigning”, organised in March in Washington DC by FEPS and the Center for American Progress, this paper by FEPS Policy Advisor David Kitching seeks to address some of the challenges facing European progressive campaigners and strategists. Drawing on the discussions held in the US, the paper argues that the focus for strategists should be on information, mobilisation, message and narrative. It urges Europeans not to learn the wrong lessons from US campaigns but to look to the potential of empowerment of citizens through the electoral process.