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POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN THE ERA OF PROFESSIONALISATION | 21

the options and determine the strategies into which the public has to buy. Politics, and
political communication, has become a top-down activity that presents voter-citizens
with choices, just as consumers are presented with products. Hence professionalisation
in politics – or the ‘rationalisation of persuasion’in Mayhew’s phrase – is geared towards
the improved production of the product for consumption. And, if the product does not
sell well, as in the case of a TV programme, we replace the leading actors (in this case
politicians) or the programme itself (the party and the programme). The danger in
these processes is that politics as an activity does not take root, it becomes ‘skin-deep’.
As Mayhew put it:

When persuasion becomes entirely instrumental, its techniques governed by the
criterion of effectiveness, the warrants of sincerity that allow audiences to extend
credit to their persuaders are undermined. There is no longer a presumption that
persuaders’ tokens will be redeemed on demand. On the contrary, the strategies
employed by the new breed of expert communicators are designed to avoid
confrontations that would require serious elaboration of their claims. In
consequence, influence becomes inflated in the sense that it lacks what I have called
‘relational backing.’ Influence comes to be based not on conversation but on token
appeals to the general predispositions of the audience, which does not build
commitment to common cause (1997,p.190).

And as more and more skills and techniques already developed in the area of business
and commerce (e.g. marketing techniques, news media management, advertising, etc.)
and entertainment are progressively invading the area of politics, it makes sense to
consider the continuous overlap between commerce and culture,commerce and politics.

But there are other concerns also: will greater professionalisation drive away the
committed amateur? Would it lead to – and is it a cause of – heightened levels of
distrust and disenchantment as the parties, led by professionals, fight it out? Will it
speed up the transformations of the European political parties into American style
leader-led, fund-raising campaign machines with no deep roots into communities? And
how much will the electorate accept? As Johnson concludes part of his own study of
political consultants in the US: Political Communication in the Era of Professionalisation

the ultimate test is what the electorate will believe and what the electorate will bear.
This is an era in which politics is an extension of entertainment, where the foibles of
politicians provide the laugh lines. … If we are not appalled by the corrosion of
popular culture, where is the sustained anger and outrage that will rid our airwaves
and mailboxes of the shocks of modern campaigning? What penalties do candidates
or consultants pay for playing hardball – or gutter ball? (2001,p.246)

In many ways, then, professionalisation seems to be an unavoidable consequence of a
whole series of inter-connected changes. The German Greens offer a good example of 23