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allowed in party sponsoring do not exist. On the other hand, following the Fortuyn
turmoil, state subsidy for political parties was raised some 50%, to 15 million euros, in
2004.

In spite of an increase in the last ten years, campaign expenditure is still limited. The
nine parties represented in parliament spent just over 7.8 million euros in the 2002
elections, with the social democrats in the lead with a mere 1.5 million. Since the 1989
elections they have almost tripled their expenditure.The 2002 elections saw an increase
of two million euros compared to 1998, but just over half a euro per voter is
considerably less than political parties spend in other European countries. In the short
campaign of 2003, after the conservative Cabinet fell following internal rows with the
ministers of the Lijst Pim Fortuyn, the budget of the parties dropped to 6.6 million
euros.

A semi-amateur status
The level of professionalisation of the parties’ campaign communication, which is thus
restricted by the level of financial maneuverability, can be judged by several
characteristics (Van Praag, 2000). Firstly, by the centralisation of the campaign and the
employment of professional staff,which show a slow but gradual change.Together with
the partly leader, the parliamentary party is increasingly getting a stronger say in the
running of the campaign, while the party board and the rank and file are more and
more sidelined. This modernisation is, however, only slightly reflected in the level of
professionalisation of the campaign staff. Certainly with the smaller parties, but even
with the big four, we normally find few outside experts on the payroll during elections.
The campaign leader, usually a party man, is hired for the duration of the campaign,
advertising is outsourced, spin doctors are still a rare breed and normally a spin-off
The Professionalisation of Political Communication
from the party’s information department, and, for media training of party leader and
main candidates, a former journalist may be temporarily employed. Recently, we do see
in campaigns political leaders surrounding themselves with a few trusted professionals,
who have a strong say in the strategy. With declining numbers of party members, a
labour-intensive campaign is no longer possible and a capital-intensive alternative
beyond their means. After the 2003 elections, evaluation commissions of CDA and VVD
concluded that professionalisation of their campaigns in the future would be desirable,
but the limited budgets so far hinder their wishes becoming realities.

Secondly, electoral research is beginning to escape its amateur-like status, with the use
of bench marking, strength-weakness analyses, voter-volatility testing, slogans, leader
image and locating electoral target groups. Research is, however, hardly translated into
campaign strategies and mostly conducted well in advance of the elections. Only the
PvdA, influenced by the 1992 Clinton campaign, employs an electoral researcher since
the 1994 campaign and spends about 15% of its campaign budget on research; other
parties commission polling bureaus, but only on a limited scale. The Social Democrats
were also the first to introduce focus groups in 1994 and to establish a long-term
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