Study title

The data are in the form of ethnographic fieldnotes pertaining to the daily activities that took place in the central campaign team of a political party that was contesting the 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly Elections over a two-month period. The data sought to capture, inter alia, the sociological profile of the members of the campaign team and their professional motivations, the innovative techniques deployed in a campaign team (with special focus on the role of data and digital media technology), the division of responsibility and delegation of authority between various actors, and assessing the overall efficiency and efficacy of the political campaign. Due to ethical constraints the data cannot be archived.Over the last decade, the nature of election campaigns and political communication around the world has undergone a marked shift. Driving this shift has been the increasing use of new media technology by political parties and their growing reliance on the services of 'spin-doctors', political consulting firms, pollsters, and big data analysts. While these new techniques of electioneering have enabled politicians to target voters to an unprecedented level of precision, it has also given a fillip to the circulation of misinformation and conspiracy theories in the public sphere, promoted the ethically dubious practice of mining of voters' personal information, and led to declining perceptions of electoral fairness. How do we understand these changes? Are they simply the result of technological change alone? Or, do they indicate a much deeper shift in the meaning and practice of democratic politics? And, what implications do these changes have for the future of democracy? Answering these questions forms the central problématique of my research. To address these questions, my research focuses on electoral and party politics in the world's largest democracy - India. While many scholars and commentators have analysed aforementioned changing nature of...