Mixed Methods and Grounded Normative Theory: Studying Election Campaigns Normatively

This paper will outline the research design of a five-year research programme, Moral Agency in Elction Campaigns (ELECT). ELECT falls within the methodological framework of “grounded normative theory”. It combines normative democratic theory with a mixed-methods and comparative research design to investigate the moral agency of key stakeholders involved in contemporary election campaigns: candidates, campaign professionals, political journalists and citizens. The moral agency of electoral stakeholders becomes a subject of concern when they are confronted with normatively charged situations involving motivations to behave in ways that undermine democratic norms or political trust. The context in which electoral stakeholders exercise their moral agency has been changing, presenting them with new normative challenges relating to their respective electoral conduct. Recent changes include the strategic and communicative possibilities provided by big data and new media and the evolving competitive landscape relating to the emergence of new electoral challengers. Existing research on the tensions between contemporary election campaigns and democracy and political trust has primarily taken campaign outputs as its objects of study. Far less studied are the moral dimensions of the inputs concerning the role that the attitudes, beliefs and motivations of stakeholders play in influencing their conduct and how their moral decision-making is affected by institutions and regulations. Neglect of this input perspective leaves major knowledge gaps that limits our ability to accurately diagnose normative problems with campaigning and prescribe effective solutions. ELECT will attempt to fill these gaps by exploring the moral agency of electoral stakeholders in four countries that have been subject to recent disruptions in the campaign context, namely Germany, Italy, the UK and the US. Empirical data will be gathered using surveys, elite interviews and citizen focus groups. Diagnostic and prescriptive analyses based on this data will employ state of the art methods in normative democratic theory.