This chapter explores how the Internet has transformed electoral campaigns by comparing the cases of four advanced democracies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States). It focuses on how the three East Asian democracies have adopted certain electoral campaign elements and strategies first developed in the United States. This has effected the emergence of what has been called an āAmericanizationā of various characteristics of campaigning in these countries. Major examples include the instrumental relationship between politics and the media and the professionalization of election campaigns, which happened much less in the Asian democracies before the Internet.
Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have taken different paths to democracy. Japan has had a considerable history of democratic politics since the end of World War II, although long one-party rule by the Liberal Democratic Party might have helped perpetuate a fairly idiosyncratic electoral culture. Korean democracy was intermittent and troubled at best until the late 1980s. Taiwan was viewed as an authoritarian regime at least until the early 1990s.
At present, however, the peoples of Japan, Korea, and Taiwan all enjoy democracy, and elections have become a special occasion for their political engagement as in other representative democracies. Regarding elections, an academic argument exists that similar characteristics of campaigning and electoral mobilization have permeated throughout the democracies in the world, and that styles are gradually becoming akin to that in the United States.
Elections in Asia may not be any exception. The Americanization of elections in these countries is brought about partly by the transfusion to Asian political contexts of modern ideas about electioneering and democratic political participation. It is a relative term, referring in practice to the hybridization of the US style of electoral politics and the indigenous way of conducting elections in each country. The pace of adaptation has been accelerated by electoral deregulation, especially deregulation of the scope of Internet use in campaigning.
There is a good chance that the advent of the Internet may promote the Americanization of election campaigns in other democracies. This is because Internet penetration in these countries or the state of the art of Internet use in elections should lead to a considerable leap forward in the sophistication of electioneering. Although South Korea and Taiwan do not have long electoral histories, the advent of the Internet there would in this interpretation be expected to quicken the pace of democratization there too.
However, there is not much research literature on the electoral impact of the Internet and Americanization within the East Asian context, especially literature in English. Many of the authors whose work is included in this book explored the electoral impact of the Internet in Japan and South Korea in our two previous books written in Japanese (Kiyohara and Maeshima 2011, 2013). We also investigated certain aspects of Americanization in Japan and Korea (Kiyohara and Maeshima 2013). Our next logical step is to continue this effort in an English publicationāthis book.
In addition, this chapter also considers the present and future potential of the emerging Internet-based way of campaigning in East Asian democracies by analyzing the truth of the claim that the Internet holds the promise of strengthening the public sphere, the realm in which well-thought-out public opinions are formed. Finally, I synthesize these discussions and argue for the importance of comparing online electioneering across the Pacific.
Before we begin, I would like to stress two points that are important for this chapter as well as for this book as a whole. First, the term āAmericanizationā needs some further clarification. Several scholars, especially in Europe, suggest that āmodernization and professionalizationā of campaigns is more proper usage than āAmericanizationā (Esser and Pfetsch 2004; Negrine et al. 2007). I donāt disagree with their arguments; but I feel more comfortable using the term āAmericanization,ā because in the countries under discussion the changes we are considering encompass more than modernization and professionalizationāthey also reflect the distinction between candidate-centered or party-centered campaign styles, for example, and perhaps most importantly the cynicism that may be heightened by the wide use of social media in campaign strategies.
Second, campaign styles must be modernized and professionalized not only in the United States but also in Europe and Asia. There are several previous studies comparing campaigning in the United States and European countries (Blumler and Gurevitch 1991, 1995, 2001; Semetko et al. 1991; Swanson and Mancini 1996; Hallin and Mancini 2004). However, there is not much literature comparing the cases of East Asian democracies (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) to that of the United States. As discussed in detail later, the three East Asian democracies have many things in common, which is another reason why this book focuses on them.
The Americanization of Electoral Campaigns in Countries Other Than the United States
I should first discuss the basic hypothesis that election campaign communication in countries other than the United States is undergoing āAmericanization.ā The hypothesis suggests that certain campaign elements and strategies developed in the United State are being adopted by other countries. It rests on three basic assumptions: that transparency in campaigning has become a universal democratic norm, that campaign strategies need to be modernized by utilizing innovative ideas and new technologies, and that the content of the news has been increasingly more internationalized.
First, the openness and transparency of the election environment in the United States still make it an excellent, if perhaps not ideal, model for democratic and civic engagement. The United States is the oldest and most eminent continuous democracy in the world. Democracy, however, was invented in ancient Greece and we do not see modern Greece as a shining pillar of democracy, whereas America appears to be an exemplary democratic nation.
The media is the test bed of the maturity of a democracy, and freedom of the press is a sacred norm in American society, where (like in many developed countries) the media conveys election news without government censorship. Thus, if a nation has a mature democracy, a high degree of economic success, and its press enjoys considerable freedom, its citizens may demand more transparent elections with more room for civic engagement, as in the United States. In this regard, too, since the media plays a crucial role in electoral transparency, the media-centered American election style is highly respected in some parts of the world.
Second, improving electoral competitiveness against rivals will be a perennial matter of concern for political candidates everywhere. Simple and effective strategies for doing so will thus be valued. American elections are the best source of such strategies because the United States has arguably the most advanced campaign industry and is perpetually updating these tactics (Harfoush 2009; Issenberg 2012).
Third, the American election style may be familiar, and hence emulated, worldwide due to the global attention given to American political and electoral news, partly because of the dominant international role of the United States and partially because of the propensity of US elections for producing newsworthy spectacles. As our world has become smaller with every new advance in communications technology, such as the Internet, the pace of globalization of elements of US elections has been accelerated. Information on American campaigns, campaigning techniques, and their outcomes is widely available globally, which has also helped spur the spread of American-style electioneering.
All these factors have promoted Americanization of election campaign communication in other countries. However, one important note of caution is that none of these factors is static; during the past 50 years, there have been sizable changes, not only in American campaign styles but also in the political culture of and degree of citizen engagement in the United States. These changes have picked up steam with the advent and rapid growth of the Internet and online social media. Americanization of elections in other democracies may bring those changes to their political environments as well.
However, we must be attentive to the possibility of local transformations of electoral campaigning in the same direction as simultaneous developments in the United States due to shared underlying conditions, a situation which might make it difficult to speak of any āinfluenceā of the US system or to identify to what extent āAmericanizationā has occurred (Negrine et al. 2007; Negrine and Papathanassopoulos 1996; Negrine 2008). It is also very likely that conditions in general will not always push elections into an āAmericanā mold, as, because of the rapidly changing nature of campaign realities, candidates or political parties in a country may attempt to innovate and apply campaign strategies quite differently from those in the United States.
Another important feature of Americanization is the modernization of election campaigns worldwide, that is, their transformation from a traditional, time-consuming, way of proceeding, with unpredictable results, to more effective mobilization with more sophisticated strategies. Since each nation has experienced Americanization in a different way, campaign styles have become a hybrid between the American style and the indigenous ways (Swanson and Mancini 1996, 4).
This process of transferring American electoral approaches to other countries is akin to and occurs alongside of globalization, by which we mean here a process of interaction and integration among the peoples, companies, and governments of different nations, driven by international trade, information technologies, and people-to-people exchange. Globalization has required and continues to require almost unavoidable changes of many sorts in many parts of the world, in the face of which, however, local rules and traditions still persist. According to Benjamin Barber, tradition and traditional values, in the form of extreme nationalism or religious orthodoxy, may oppose globalization, but the power of globalization may ultimately win the struggle (Barber 1995).
Four Elements of Americanization of Electoral Campaigns in Other Countries
Since the elements and strategies associated with electoral Americanization are varied and constantly changing, I will now consider features of American elections that have continued to be important. Various scholars have examined the extent to which electoral politics in a particular country have been affected by the US model (Blumler and Gurevitch 1991, 1995, 2001; Semetko et al. 1991; Swanson and Mancini 1996; Esser and Pfetsch 2004; Hallin and Mancini 2004; Negrine et al. 2007). These studies have compared election messages and depictions of public officials in the media in various countries and have paid attention to the following key elements of the modern US model of election campaigning that many countries have adopted in recent years.
In those studies, four particular reference points in US elections come up: (1) media-centered campaign practices; (2) declining influence of political parties in recruiting and selecting candidates, alongside increasingly candidate-centered campaigns; (3) professionalization of electioneering; and (4) increasing cynicism among voters. Some of those signs are clearly manifested in the Asian cases considered here, but others, especially declining influence, are not as yet.
These four elements of the Americanization of elections are closely connected. The growth of the media and the Internet has promoted professionalization with a strong emphasis on electoral marketing strategies and tools, such as frequent opinion polls. Marketing is effective in selling the face and name of a particular candidate rather than the party to which the candidate belongs. This leads to more candidate-centered elections, rather than party-oriented ones. Since each ...