POLITICAL-PARTIES AND ELECTORAL MOBILIZATION - POLITICAL-STRUCTURE, SOCIAL-STRUCTURE, AND THE PARTY CANVASS

As agents of electroal mobilization, political parties occupy an impor tant role in the social flow of political communication. We address se veral questions regarding party mobilization efforts. Whom do the part ies seek to mobilize? What are the individual and aggregate characteri stics and criteria that shape party mobilization efforts? What are the intended and unintended consequences of partisan mobilization, both f or individual voters and for the electorate more generally? In answeri ng these questions we make several arguments. First, party efforts at electoral mobilization inevitably depend upon a process of social diff usion and informal persuasion, so that the party canvass serves as a c atalyst aimed at stimulating a cascading mobilization process. Second, party mobilization is best seen as being environmentally contingent u pon institutional arrangements, locally defined strategic constraints, and partisan divisions within particular electorates. Finally, the ef forts of party organizations generate a layer of political structure w ithin the electorate that sometimes competes with social structure and often exists independently from it.