The Science of Elections and Campaigns

This course will provide students with an introduction to the science of political campaigns. What works, what doesn’t, and how can we develop and evaluate better techniques in the future? The course will discuss traditional campaigning techniques along with new techniques that rely on big data, social networking, new technologies, etc., and we will attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of these different approaches. The course will be targeted at students who may be interested in conducting or working on political campaigns as a practitioner. However, the course should also be of interest to students who simply want to learn more about campaigns, elections, or how to apply scientific thinking to politically-important or policy-relevant questions. The course will focus primarily on electoral campaigns, although many of the lessons will be applicable to other kinds of political campaigns (e.g., lobbying, issue advocacy). All non-MPP students should seek permission from the instructor before enrolling.