Doorknocks and dog bandanas: a new conception of field campaigning activities

ABSTRACT

Despite pundit claims that field campaigns contributed to the Australian Greens Party and independent candidates’ successes in the 2022 federal election, little is known about the activities conducted. The use and development of novel activities has been established, but what happens on the ground remains largely invisible. Comparing the results of semistructured interviews with participants from across the Australian Greens Party and the ‘teal’ independents (N = 73), this article develops a new understanding of the activities of field campaigning and illuminates the differences between independent and party campaigns. The Greens are shown to focus more on traditional voter contact activities, while the independent campaigns prioritise visibility and volunteer participation. From these results, this study establishes a new definition of field campaigning and clarifies the way in which institutional knowledge, or the lack thereof, shapes the conception and development of campaign activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Field campaigning
• the Australian greens
• independents
• teal
• 2022 Australian federal election
• political parties

Introduction

Whether described as a ‘Green-slide’ or a ‘teal wave,’ grassroots campaigns were a prominent feature of the 2022 Australian federal election. Despite claims of thousands of doors knocked and volunteers recruited, little detail is known of the strategies of Australian field campaigns run by parties, and still less is known of independent campaigns. Field campaigns have been defined by the various voter contact activities conducted by volunteers ‘on the ground’ in the electorate, such as doorknocking or calling voters (Kefford 2021; Nielsen 2012). However, research indicates that campaigners seek novel activities, although institutional knowledge shapes and limits their choices (Kefford 2021, 202; Laurison 2022, 25). This suggests that the spread of campaign activities may be more varied than has been captured in the definition or previous research, and more so still within the campaigns of independent candidates. This study deepens our understanding of changes in field campaigning activities and the role of institutional knowledge by comparing the activities of Greens and independents’ campaigns.

Field campaigns are among the least visible aspects of electoral campaigning (Young 2015, 104). This is due to their focus on direct personal contact with voters and the competitive nature of campaigning, which encourages campaigns to keep their strategies opaque. Despite this opacity, many Australians participate in field campaigns as either volunteers or those contacted by campaigns. The Australian Electoral Study indicates that 14 per cent of respondents worked for a party or candidate during the 2022 federal election, and 56 per cent of respondents were contacted by a party or campaign (Cameron and McAllister 2022, 11, 13). Through this direct form of political communication, field campaigns may profoundly shape voters’ and volunteers’ understanding of and relationship to politics (Mills 2012, 145). Campaigns do so by acting as a site of political participation coordinated and planned by a party or candidate (Laurison 2022, 137). The quality and form of this participation may impact individuals’ views of electoral politics, their opportunities for meaningful participation and, ultimately, influence their likelihood to continue participating in institutional politics (Pettitt 2020, 70). Further, campaigns are intended to shape the themes and outcomes of an election. It is, therefore, invaluable to understand what happens on the ground in these electorates.

Existing literature on field campaigns has developed knowledge of the traditional activities of campaigns, defining these campaigns by their focus on voter contact, and commonly employing survey methodologies (Farrell and Schmitt-Beck 2006; Kalla and Broockman 2018; Kefford 2021). This work has customarily focused on the campaigns of political parties but has been applied to Irish independents (Weeks 2008). Other scholarship has contributed understandings of the experiences of participation of party members and supporters, and how field campaigns have developed and changed (Faucher 2015; Fisher, Fieldhouse, and Cutts 2014; Gauja and Jackson 2016). However, the changes discussed are usually changes in campaigning technology, data and organisation, rather than activities. From this body of work we understand that campaigners make choices guided by accepted wisdom and institutional norms, and they decide which activities to conduct, expressing preferences and experimenting with new approaches (Laurison 2022, 100). Therefore, field campaign activities are implied to be more varied than the traditional activities depicted in scholarly literature suggest.

Changes in field campaigning methods and organisation are driven by parties and campaigns looking for novel and apparently successful campaigning techniques to adopt. In recent years, this has occurred within a broader context of declining party membership that has prompted parties to seek new ways to engage supporters (Stromer-Galley 2019). The Australian Liberal and Labor parties noted the success and strength of independent and Greens field campaigns and discussed their need to revitalise their grassroots efforts to keep up in their reviews of the 2022 election (ALP 2022; Loughnane and Hume 2022). Regardless of whether the success of independents and the Greens can be attributed to these campaigns (McAllister 2023), this may have significance for future campaigning efforts as parties consider new activities to offer supporters.

The understudied campaign activities of ‘teal’ independents are used as case studies for this research due to the prominence of their field campaigns, and their recent electoral successes. Independent campaigns are expected to include more novel activities. The Australian Greens have been chosen for comparison due to the similarities between Greens and independent campaigns. For each, field campaigns were not just sizable and prominent but targeted at particular local electorates. These groups each portray themselves as community movements through their grassroots efforts. Both groups present the possibility of variation across campaigns. Independents, evenly when loosely affiliated, are by nature independent of parties and therefore the organisational aspects that contribute to their campaigns (Weeks 2009). As a confederated party with differences between state branches, the Greens are also expected to have some experimentation in their campaigning (Miragliotta 2012, 110).

While there are similarities between Greens and independent campaigns, there is a fundamental difference between party and independent campaign organisational structures that elucidate the changes made by independents. Research on party campaigns has shown institutional understanding and accepted wisdom often guide campaign activities (Kefford 2018, 107; Laurison 2022, 25). In his study of Irish independent campaign activities, Weeks (2008, 204) found few differences in the campaign activities of independents and parties. However, Weeks’ use of survey data limited his ability to capture new activities and Australian independent campaigns have never been examined in detail. This study’s qualitative and comparative approach is best suited to identifying novel activities and understanding the extent to which institutional knowledge may impact the development of new campaign strategies.

Through the overarching aim of capturing the changes in campaign activities, this article expands existing definitions of field campaigning to better reflect the realities of contemporary campaigns. By offering insights into the activities supplied by independents this study provide a more accurate picture of field campaigning activities in Australia and the ways in which new approaches may differ and develop within independent and party campaigns. This article first considers what the literature has established regarding field campaigning and its activities. This discussion establishes the need for a more open-ended understanding of field campaigning activities and highlights the potential for differences between party and independent campaigns.

Defining and categorising field campaigning activities

Research on field campaigns has come from a variety of disciplines, as these campaigns sit at the juncture of fields such as political communication, party organisation, and election studies (see Kefford 2021; McKenna and Han 2014; Nielsen 2012; Stromer-Galley 2019). The literature depicts field campaigns as a site of change in recent years, whether these are within the campaigns themselves or indicative of changes elsewhere, such as through information and communications technology development, or shifts in party organisation. Despite this varied research, the literature overwhelmingly defines field campaigning through parties’ use of activities often referred to as traditional campaigning, typically contrasted against digital campaigning (Kefford 2021). Through traditional activities parties and candidates seek to contact voters through representatives – that is, party members and volunteers engaging in activities such as doorknocking or calling voters. Some studies expand on these activities and examine field campaigning more broadly through an approach modelled on political participation studies (Fisher, Fieldhouse, and Cutts 2014; Gauja and Jackson 2016). These works are more likely to include a wider range of activities, such as donations, distributing materials, fundraising, attending meetings, participating in actions, and helping in the campaign office. These approaches to researching field campaigns have allowed for excellent comparative survey work but are not well-equipped to capture changes in campaigning activities.

Although it is understood that experimentation occurs in local field campaigns, there has been very limited documentation of new activities. For this reason, the complete slew of activities is inadequately documented. This is more apparent within the campaigns of independents, who do not have an existing party apparatus to direct them in how to conduct a campaign, and whose campaigns have been discussed in only three studies internationally (Hendriks 2017; Hendriks and Reid 2023b; Weeks 2008). For example, former federal independent member of parliament, Cathy McGowan’s campaigns for her regional seat of Indi, appear to have included a broader, more creative range of activities, as volunteers attended bush dances, painted seats orange and sewed dog bandanas (Hendriks 2017; McGowan 2019, 181). These activities should be considered part of the field campaign, as volunteers conducted them with the intention of facilitating communication with voters. However, seeing an orange chair or a dog wearing a bandana is a more indirect form of communication than speaking to a voter. Clearly, including the team of volunteers sewing bandanas as a form of field campaigning would broaden the definition. Therefore, capturing the full range of campaign activities and the differences between party and independent campaigns requires open-ended qualitative approaches and a broader understanding.

Foremost among a campaign’s priorities is, of course, winning elections. Within Australia’s electoral context, winning elections requires persuasion rather than mobilisation, and field campaigning’s ability to persuade is highly contested within the literature. Persuasion effects have been argued to be both positive and negative, with an ultimate average of zero (Kalla and Broockman 2018). However, a wide range of other effects of activities are seen as contributing to the campaign’s overarching electoral success. These include, but may not be limited to, persuading voters directly, recruiting volunteers, collecting voter data, and providing voters with more information about candidates (Broockman and Kalla 2023; Kefford 2021; Stromer-Galley 2019). Within the existing definition of field campaigning as voter contact there are therefore numerous ways in which the form and purpose of activities may be categorised and understood.

As in other arenas, such as policy development, parties and candidates balance office-seeking behaviour against the need to be responsive and representative (Carson, Ratcliff, and Dufresne 2018, 18; Ratcliff 2017, 250). For field campaigns, this translates to balancing electoral success and volunteers’ preferences. How well a field campaign retains its volunteers is largely due to the value they ascribe to their activities and how rewarding they find the experience. In Pettitt’s (2020, 71) analysis, volunteers must view their actions as rewarding to remain involved after ‘political enthusiasm has spent itself in the drudgery of local campaigning’. Accordingly, these retention processes include friendship, fun, feeling appreciated, being given a say, access to information, and tailored volunteering opportunities. We might therefore expect to see activities that fulfil these retention processes.

Of the latter, tailored activities offered to the volunteer aligns with scholarship exploring the individualisation of political participation. As a form of political participation, field campaigning activities may be differentiated as collective or individualised (Faucher 2015, 17; Theocharis and Van Deth 2018, 158; Van Deth 2014, 358). A significant body of literature has emerged looking at the evolution of participation in political parties and charting a trend toward looser affiliations, with a growing emphasis on volunteer identity and rising individualisation, and yet party campaigns are generally defined by formalised structures that decide upon campaign activities unilaterally (Gauja 2015; Scarrow 2014). This analysis has not been applied to the variety or novelty of field campaigning activities or independent campaigns, and there may be individualised activities not captured within the existing literature.

Finally, the intensity of these participatory activities has been differentiated through the commitment asked of volunteers and increased participatory opportunities have been described as volunteering incentives (Faucher 2015, 6). Previous works have applied this categorisation to the campaign activities of political parties to develop an understanding of the differences or similarities between members and supporters’ choices of high and low intensity activities in party campaigns (Fisher, Fieldhouse, and Cutts 2014, 92; Gauja and Jackson 2016, 375; Whiteley and Seyd 2005). Categorising activities through this approach is based on assessments of the time and effort required to accomplish these tasks. Rather than revisiting the well-documented area of volunteer choices, this study considers the activities offered by the campaign. In doing so, it captures the variety and types of activities conducted and considers the impact changing activities may have on the existing definition of field campaigning. The primary and overarching research question asks: Are there activities offered by the Greens and independent campaigns beyond traditional voter contact?

Parties, field campaigns and change: what can the field campaigning activities of independents tell us?

Historically, scholars have focused on the field campaigns of candidates from political parties. There is a good reason for this: political parties and their candidates typically run the largest and most competitive election campaigns. Party campaigns are also well developed, with long histories of campaigning and funding for professional campaigners (Mills 2012).

Although many try to keep up-to-date with the latest research and experiment with new methods, scholarship from Australia and abroad shows that party campaigners often learn through experience, in which accepted wisdom is passed down and ‘gut instinct’ is considered a strength (Kefford 2021, 202; Laurison 2022, 25). However, the activities conducted differ across campaigns and parties, implying that the rationales and norms within parties may also differ. It seems likely that adherence to conventional field campaigning methods would be stronger in party campaigns, passed down by party institutions.

Australian research has demonstrated a strong relationship between field campaigning and party organisation, as parties’ pursuit of new supporters and changing campaign methods have affected party structure (Kefford 2018). Field campaigns create a need for large-scale supporter participation, shifting power to the ‘party on the ground’ (Katz and Mair 1993, 597; Webb, Poletti, and Bale 2017). Because of this, field campaigns have encouraged parties to create opportunities for looser forms of affiliation in their pursuit of volunteers and develop a more stratarchical model for intra-party organisation (Kefford 2018; Kefford 2021, 174). However, in her study of US presidential campaigns, Stromer-Galley (2019, 20) considered campaigns’ offerings, describing party election campaigns are sites of directed and controlled participation in which a campaign must maintain the sense that they are providing meaningful engagement for supporters. Stromer-Galley (2019, 20) argued that this interactivity and participation is often for show, with successful campaigns maintaining party control. Whether this is unique to the campaign activities of parties is unknown.

Previous works have provided insights into the relationship between campaigning methods and intra-organisation power. However, the focus on parties has given few opportunities to consider whether field campaigning differs for independent candidates, who likely lack experience with traditions of field campaigning practices and certainly lack national party and membership structures. The most extensive study of independent campaigns considered Irish independent candidates’ campaigns, and using surveys, found no significant differences (Weeks 2008). However, as the discussion so far has highlighted, there is reason to think qualitative research may capture a wider array of activities. Within the Australian literature, Hendriks (2017) and Hendriks and Reid (2023b; 2023a) have discussed the creative campaign activities used by independents in their studies of the participatory and deliberative efforts of the community independents movement. However, field campaigns were not the focus of these works. In the most extensive recent work on Australian field campaigns, Kefford (2021, 112) focused on three parties and noted the absence of independent campaigns as a limitation. As the first study of the ‘teal’ independents’ campaigns and Australian independent campaigns more broadly, this study considers the role of institutional knowledge in campaigning through the secondary research question: Are independent campaigns more likely to conduct novel activities?

While the traditional and definitional activities of field campaigning are known, new and developing activities are poorly captured in existing research. Beyond this, there is reason to believe independents are more likely to employ novel activities, but independents’ field campaigning activities and how they may differ from those of parties are unknown. This study compares the campaign activities of the Australian Greens and the 2022 independents to develop an expanded understanding of field campaigning and to propose a broader definition.

Methodology

This study draws upon interview data with participants from the Australian Greens and independent field campaigns to address this research aim. Case study research is used as it is best placed to capture detailed insights within their context (Yin 2014) and local field campaigns are shaped significantly by their setting and actors. This study compares two case studies, as this approach is well suited to exploratory research that seeks to offer explanatory insights (Yin 2014). These groups were chosen as they present themselves as grassroots or community-led campaigns. The Greens and the independents present field campaigns as a significant part of their campaigning efforts. The scope for the independents was defined as campaigns that received financial support from Climate 200 during the 2022 federal election campaign. Among other criteria, Climate 200 provided financial support only to those campaigns that could demonstrate community support and fundraising (Holmes à Court 2022, 60). This decision ensured that the independent campaigns considered here were of a scale that made their field campaigning likely to be comparable to that of an established party. Two campaigns in the federal electorates of Grey and Boothby were excluded. Efforts to contact these campaigns were consistently unsuccessful, and publicly available information and insights from interviewees from Climate 200 and other independent campaigns indicated that little field campaigning was conducted in these electorates. In addition to participants from independent electorate campaigns, campaign-related Climate 200 staff were interviewed to understand any general advice provided across campaigns. For the Australian Greens, interviewees were from across the state and national parties. Most interviewees had worked on federal campaigns that the party considered winnable. This ensured comparability – that the Greens interviewees had worked on field campaigns of a similar scale to those of the independents.

The interviews took place in three rounds; Australian Greens participants were interviewed across 2020 and 2021, and, due to the nascency of the independent movement, independent participants were interviewed in 2022.¹ In total, 20 individuals from the Australian Greens and 53 from the independents’ campaigns were interviewed (N = 73). The discrepancy in interviewee numbers was due to the difference in organisational groupings. The Greens’ confederation includes eight state or territory parties and a national party, whereas the independents within the scope of this study come from sixteen campaigns and Climate 200. Further, due to the longer history of the Greens, interviewees from this group had often worked across state and national parties in multiple elections, which was not the case for the independent interviewees. For both groups, interviewees had typically held a range of roles and responsibilities, even within a single campaign. Three interviewees from each independent campaign team or party body were sought, to triangulate data and reach data saturation. Potential interviewees were contacted using publicly available information, and chain sampling was employed to seek additional interviewees, as campaign participants are often difficult to identify publicly (Lilleker 2003, 212). The interviews were semistructured to accommodate the wide range of experiences and positions of interviewees on these campaigns.

Transcripts were analysed using grounded theory analysis and inductively coded for activities and themes using Nvivo software (Corbin and Strauss 2008). Initial inductive coding was conducted during transcription, and additional codes were prepopulated from categories of activities identified in the literature when the analysis was moved to Nvivo. Codes were used to denote activities, and whether they were considered high- or low-barrier activities. Activities were coded as core or peripheral where appropriate to indicate whether interviewees considered the activity a central or requisite component of their campaign or an additional activity. As grounded theory analysis is an iterative approach, analysis overlapped with the interviewing rounds and data saturation was judged as the point at which no new themes or information were gained (Fusch and Ness 2015, 1409).

Results

Comparison of field campaigning activities

Interviewees from the Greens and independents described a wide array of activities (Table 1 lists the full range of activity types identified in the interviews). While some of these activities primarily intended to produce direct contact with voters, many fall outside the traditional activities and definition of field campaigning. Less conventional activities included managing voter data, volunteer recruitment and retention, and visibility or ‘stunts’. Despite this diversity, interviewees described all these activities as field campaigning. Typically, two rationales were given: (a) that the activity was directed at contacting voters or supporting this contact; or (b) that volunteers conducted the activity. The latter explanation suggests an understanding of field campaigns defined by their organisational structure and/or participants rather than campaign purpose. No significant difference was found between volunteer and campaigner understandings of campaign activities in either the Greens or independent campaigns. This suggests that either the campaigners’ understandings shape those of volunteers, or that those volunteers who disagree leave.

Table 1. Field campaigning activities conducted.

Activity	Greens	Independents
Doorknocking	Core	Core/Peripheral/Not conducted
Phone banking	Core	Peripheral/Not conducted
Polling day	Peripheral	Peripheral
Texts	Peripheral	Peripheral/Not conducted
Volunteer recruitment	Core	Peripheral/Not conducted
Stalls	Peripheral	Core
Flyering	Peripheral	Peripheral
Erecting Placards	Peripheral	Core
Training	Peripheral	Peripheral
Online Volunteering	Peripheral	Not conducted
Data Entry	Peripheral	Not conducted
Social events	Peripheral/Not conducted	Core
Banner Waves	Peripheral/Not conducted	Core/Not conducted
Letter writing	Not conducted	Peripheral/Not conducted
Fundraising	Peripheral/Not conducted	Peripheral
Walks	Not conducted	Core
Wearing t-shirts	Not conducted^1	Core

¹ T-shirts are worn as part of other Greens activities but are not considered a stand-alone activity.

Source: Author from interview data (N  = 73).

Despite the diverse activities in Table 1, Greens and independent campaigns clearly prioritised different activities. Where appropriate, activities were coded as either core, peripheral or not conducted according to how central the activity was considered and the frequency with which it was conducted. For example, when asked what activities were conducted every interviewee from the Greens discussed doorknocking first and described it as central to their field campaigning, so it was coded as a core activity. Where more than one code is listed, this indicates differences between campaigns. Many of these activities were conducted in only one of the interviewee groups. Therefore, the following discussion will focus primarily on activities interviewees considered central to their campaigning efforts. The analysis will first consider the primary differences between the activities conducted by the Greens and independents, before examining doorknocking and visibility in greater depth.

Independent interviewees were significantly more likely to include activities that involved no voter contact than Greens interviewees. They also had a less consistent view of core field campaigning activities. There were no activities that all interviewees from the independents mentioned, demonstrating the variation between independent campaigns. However, the variety itself was a theme, and as one interviewee put it, ‘these people decided to do it themselves, and they did it in different ways’ (Interviewee 68 2022). The sheer variety of these activities is indicative of the choices and personalisation available for volunteers involved in independent campaigns. This was often described as ‘self-selecting activities’, and independent campaigners recounted telling campaign volunteers ‘my job here is to find a way to make this work for you’ (Interviewee 51 2022).

However, individualisation was not necessarily linked to decentralisation. Independent campaigns ranged significantly in their level of centralised control, from structures similar to political parties to highly devolved campaigns where activities were chosen and organised at the neighbourhood. More centralised independent campaigns offered volunteers choices from a broad menu of potential activities, and may have listened to input, but ultimately decisions were made centrally, and volunteers were often guided into particular activities:

In my initial onboarding, I actually incorporated door-knocking training into it. So, people didn’t realise, but they signed up to do letterboxing and they were trained to do door knocking instead. And then they were told “Oh, you’ll letterbox soon.” But they never did. They just ended up door knocking. (Interviewee 49, 2022)

This could also be achieved less formally. As noted, volunteer and campaigner perspectives on field campaigns and activities were remarkably similar within campaigns. Through shaping volunteers’ view of what was an effective activity, both Greens and independent campaigns defined which activities volunteers viewed as important or the focus of the campaign.

Greens interviewees highlighted the voter’s role in defining field campaigning through voter contact activities, while independent field campaigns prioritised activities focused on volunteers. This was apparent in how interviewees described these activities:

There were lots of banner events, like fun events that engage the community … a big part of the campaign was always about, well, if you get the volunteers on, and they wear your t-shirt, and they know how to behave well when they’re wearing the t-shirt, then they almost don't need to do a lot more. (Interviewee 66 2022)

These activities focused on drawing in volunteers by ensuring that they enjoyed participating, creating ‘opportunities for people to feel engaged in a place that was within their comfort zone’ (Interviewee 66 2022).

Some activities described in the independent campaigns were novel, falling outside the activities typically associated with field campaigning, such as ‘cafe meetings. We'd all gather as a group that cafes and chat and make ourselves visibly obvious’ (Interviewee 48 2022). Others were not novel, but interviewees viewed the activities as such, highlighting their lack of previous campaign experience. For example, banner waving, where volunteers stand on the side of a major road during busy times, waving signs, banners and placards, was considered novel by some, although commonplace in other campaigns.² Others described activities as inspired by those they considered successful in other campaigns, most commonly the campaigns of other independent candidates.

While not every activity listed was offered by each campaign, the frequent inclusion of activities such as wearing a campaign t-shirt at a café indicates an overarching ethos of low-barrier activities common to these campaigns. Despite the lower effort and time commitments associated with these activities, the number and scale at which they were conducted meant that volunteer involvement was extensive, and many attended these events more than once a week.

In comparison, the Greens’ activities have little variation, focusing clearly on doorknocking and phonebanking across campaigns, albeit with differences in approach and scripts. The dominance of voter contact activities across interviews indicates a strong shared understanding amongst Greens interviewees of the activities that should be conducted as part of a field campaign. Voter contact activities such as these are reasonably high-barrier and require volunteers to undergo training and commit to longer, scheduled sessions. Interviewees acknowledged this as a difficulty that they attempt to address by simplifying processes; ‘part of focusing on large scale meant that we really wanted to reduce the barriers of what it took to be involved’ (Interviewee 16 2021). Different state branches approached this in different ways. For example, the Victorian Greens aimed to simplify processes for volunteers, aiming for more efficient and low barrier versions of voter contact. This was achieved through brief training sessions and simple voter contact scripts, that emphasised identifying voter intentions so that undecided voters may be contacted by more experienced volunteers. In contrast, the Queensland Greens used more detailed and complex voter contact scripts which require more extensive training, but offset this by including social events. This is an example of activities conducted by the Greens that were less common or intended primarily to be ‘supportive of the core field campaigning work’ (Interviewee 3 2020). For example, texting and running social events are activities aimed at volunteer recruitment and retention and considered peripheral by Greens interviewees.

While some independent campaigns did include more high-barrier voter contact activities, this did not mean low-barrier activities were primarily framed as volunteer recruitment measures. Indeed, many independent campaigns appear to have done little direct volunteer recruitment compared to the Greens, instead focusing on inducting those who had expressed interest as the campaign rose in visibility or asking volunteers to take on particular roles. This is particularly the case for the more prominent campaigns, which largely relied on supporters seeking them out due to the visibility of the candidate, organically coming across the campaign at the doorstep, or ‘telling your friend to tell a friend … And then people got involved, went to something and then they told more people’ (Interviewee 68 2022). The few exceptions to this are the field campaigns that struggled to build momentum, such as Hughes, or were located in regional electorates, which lacked the benefit of concentrated population centres.

Voter contact and visibility

Although both groups conducted doorknocking, the volume, scale and type of doorknocking differed substantially between Greens and independent field campaigns. Doorknocking is the fundamental activity that forms the basis of all Greens field campaigns, and most interviewees referred to it as the ‘obvious’ centrepiece of their campaigns. Regardless of whether it is the activity performed most often or the activity that the majority of volunteers partake in – which in many cases is on polling day – to the Greens doorknocking is synonymous with field campaigning:

Doorknocking, obviously’ (Interviewee 17 2021). ‘The big one’s doorknocking; that’s the majority of it’ (Interviewee 14 2021). ‘Australian Greens field campaigning is really heavily dominated by doorknocking’ (Interviewee 5 2020). ‘Obviously, we have doorknocking. (Interviewee 4 2020)

Interviewees from the Greens generally discussed doorknocking as either an attempt at voter persuasion or intended to identify the voting intentions of individuals so that more experienced volunteers could try persuading undecided voters later in the campaign. The view of interviewees here was typically divided along state lines. In either case, the intent was to ultimately persuade voters. The party previously employed forms of doorknocking described as ‘survey doorknocks’ but has since committed to persuasion efforts as the Queensland Greens’ approach has appeared to garner more success (Interviewee 7, 2020). Doorknocking was viewed by Greens interviewees as an act of direct dialogue with voters and therefore demonstrative of the Greens as a grassroots party that values participatory democracy and the opinions of voters.

In contrast, although mentioned frequently, doorknocking was not consistently considered a central inclusion in independent campaigns. Indeed, some did not engage in this activity at all and instead discussed why they did not do so. These interviewees typically considered doorknocking ‘intrusive and not particularly useful’ (Interviewee 71 2022). This was most common for interviewees from Sydney electorates, such as in Warringah or Bradfield. The campaigns conducted in metropolitan Melbourne were the most likely to refer to doorknocking as a core campaign activity. Kooyong and Goldstein’s campaigns engaged in extensive doorknocking, and in the case of Kooyong, did so to the exclusion of other activities common to the independent campaigns, such as regular banner waving. These differences indicate state and region-based distinctions between field campaign activities amongst the independents. Even in those campaigns that did doorknock extensively, doorknocking was viewed as fulfilling a different purpose than in the Greens’ campaigns. Where interviewees from the Greens spoke of identifying voting intentions and persuading voters, those from independent campaigns were more likely to refer to doorknocking as helping raise voters’ awareness and knowledge of the candidate, ‘presenting pamphlets … and then trying to get some engagement’ (Interviewee 37 2022). Campaigns that felt they had enough visibility through other activities were therefore less likely to doorknock, saying that doorknocking was ‘great for visibility, but we already had so much visibility anyway’ (Interviewee 70 2022).

Through discussing current political concerns and engaging politely and positively, the hope was that voters would convince themselves without the campaign being perceived as pushy. Others viewed voter persuasion attempts as largely fruitless. One interviewee from Kooyong discussed it in this way:

Doorknocking is kind of self-explanatory, where the point there is not to persuade people. And I put an extreme amount of effort in removing from the campaign anyone who attempted to persuade anyone. You cannot persuade another human being to change their politics … You can influence them, though. So, the point was to give everyone in the electorate a really positive experience of the campaign. (Interviewee 49 2022)

Rather than persuading voters, doorknocking for independents was intended to increase candidate awareness and give voters a positive impression. Regardless of the activity discussed, the emphasis on positivity permeated the independent campaigns, and many within these campaigns summarised this in the slogan ‘positive, polite, and prepared’.

As noted, the independent campaigns also included a far more extensive and varied range of field campaign activities than seen in the Greens. Independent campaigns tended to focus significantly more and consistently on activities aimed at visibility and voters’ awareness of the campaign and candidate. As part of these efforts, many of the independent campaigns produced a wide array of campaign merchandise – including t-shirts, stickers, umbrellas, dog bandanas and more – to be offered to supporters free of charge. Displaying support in this way was viewed by most as a form of campaigning. Many interviewees from independent campaigns believed that activities intended to be visible to – but not necessarily interact with – voters were central to their field campaigning efforts. In addition to awareness, visibility activities were viewed as an indication of public support:

These people chose to endorse an independent, and they chose to endorse an independent by branding themselves, wearing T-shirts and caps or branding their home with corflutes and banners, and their cars as well, and their dogs with the bandanas and their swimming caps, if they are swimmers, and their shopping bag if they wanted to carry a bag around. (Interviewee 68, 2022)

Visibility activities were also viewed as demonstrating the grassroots nature of this movement to both volunteers and voters and aiding the campaigns’ efforts to ‘win [volunteers] over to the movement as a whole’, ensuring its longevity (Interviewee 40 2022). These activities were intended ‘to show that there were members of the community who were excited about this opportunity and who were willing to give up their time’ (Interviewee 44 2022), demonstrating the independent campaigns’ identity as a community movement.

Even when discussing activities that Greens interviewees conceived of as being about voter contact – such as doorknocking – independent participants described their function as ‘awareness building’. The line between the field campaign and other campaign elements were somewhat blurred. While some outlying Greens interviewees included activities that support voter contact, such as data entry or training, independent campaigns more frequently included activities that fall within media and marketing, such as writing letters to local newspapers, where ‘they would write a letter, then they'd use their partner's name and write another letter’ (Interviewee 34 2022). More common than letter-writing were stunts intended to gain the campaign earned media. Coordinated dances with teal, Zali Steggall-branded umbrellas, or Kooyong’s ‘living mural’³ are the most prominent example of these stunts.

Interviewees from both groups presented their focus as based on the campaign's needs. Visibility is the common thread between many of the independents’ field campaign activities. As independents did not have party affiliations that would indicate to voters what they stood for, they needed ‘to try and create that awareness to create a profile from scratch, whereas the major parties, having their machines are just like, plug the person into the machine’ (Interviewee 46 2022). In this way, awareness was used to address the lower public recognition of first-time independent candidates and help attract more supporters to join the campaign. Similarly, interviewees from the Greens suggested that their difficulties lie in voters believing they were unlikely to be elected and lack of media coverage, and direct voter contact was best placed to deal with these issues. These activities demonstrate that the Greens are ‘serious about running for an election’ and allow the campaign to speak directly with the electorate (Interviewee 3 2020). For each group, field campaigns help overcome these perceived weaknesses.

The key distinction between the Greens’ and independents’ activities is their respective focuses on voter persuasion and voter awareness. Interviewees generally linked these focuses to their candidate or party’s position within the electorate and how this, in turn, shapes their campaign goals. Table 2 summarises the key differences established between Greens and independent activities.

Table 2. Major differences in field campaigning activities.

	Greens	Independents
Variation in activities	Less variation between campaigns	More variation between campaigns
Commitment asked of volunteers	Higher barrier/intensity	Lower barrier/intensity
Voter contact	High contact	Low contact
Approach to winning votes	Persuasion	Awareness and visibility
Volunteer recruitment	Direct recruitment and retention efforts	Recruitment occurs through visibility
Primary actor considered	Voter	Volunteer
Activity structure	Collective, centralised and focused on achieving or supporting campaign priorities	Individualised, flexible and often social. Ranged from decentralised to centralised

Discussion & conclusion

This article posed two research questions that have been addressed through this unique and detailed comparative account of field campaigning activities. The first and overarching research question considered whether there were novel activities offered by the independent and Greens campaigns, beyond traditional voter contact efforts. These findings have demonstrated the diversity of field campaigning activities and support the assertion that the existing definition and its use in research design has limited scholars in their ability to capture new activities. The findings have clearly demonstrated activities beyond traditional voter contact efforts are employed and thought of as part of field campaigning, because they were conducted by volunteers. These activities were particularly common in independent campaigns but were also conducted by the Greens. As such, I argue that field campaigning activities should be defined by volunteer involvement and/or voter contact, to better capture the realities of these campaigns and the perspectives of those within them.

The second research question sought to understand whether novel activities were more likely in independent campaigns, which may lack the formalised structure or institutional knowledge of parties. As the first qualitative comparative study of independent and party campaigns, this research has demonstrated that independent campaigns possess a less uniform understanding of campaigns and therefore employ a more diverse and novel array of activities. These activities are more likely to sit outside the existing definition of field campaigning and the associated traditional voter contact activities. This supports accounts of institutional knowledge shaping the development of party campaigns and speaks to the different aims and electoral positions of party and independent campaigns.

The literature review detailed how activities have been categorised variously by their intensity, individualisation, purpose and volunteer experience. The findings have shown differences between the Greens and independents in each of these categories (Table 2). Moreover, intra-group differences have been found, further highlighting the variety and changes within field campaigning. Further research on why campaigners choose to employ particular activities is needed to explore these findings in greater depth.

Supporting existing work, interviewees across both groups believed activities provided electoral success through recruitment, persuasion, and providing voters with information (Broockman and Kalla 2023; Kefford 2021; Stromer-Galley 2019). For the Greens, this study’s findings indicate that the party has prioritised a narrower range of traditional high-intensity activities with fewer individualised or social activities. This aligns with existing literature on political parties seeking to maintain organisational control of grassroots practices, and suggests that institutional knowledge plays a strong role in determining campaign activities (Stromer-Galley 2019, 20). Some differences between the state parties were noted, as expected of a confederated party (Miragliotta 2012). However, independent campaigns have been shown to have prioritised social, low-intensity activities with more options for individualised action. This supports and builds upon work on the difference in member and supporter participation in election campaigns, showing that existing party organisations support the continuation of traditional high-intensity activities within party campaigns (Fisher, Fieldhouse, and Cutts 2014; Gauja and Jackson 2016; Webb, Poletti, and Bale 2017). Further, the activities of independents advance our understanding of the ongoing evolution towards loose forms of political participation and organisation. Documented shifts to looser forms of affiliation and participation were not only present in independent campaigns but more common.

Campaigners’ choices were shown to have been strategic, subjective, and malleable in a way not previously depicted. This is particularly the case for independent campaigns. There is a need for further research to examine the perspectives and motivations behind campaigners’ choice of activities in greater detail. The breadth of activities established supports the assertion that field campaigning extends far beyond traditional voter contact activities and is best defined as the aspects of a campaign that communicate directly with voters or are conducted by volunteers. While comparative studies surveying the use of traditional activities have provided a deeper understanding of field campaigns, these findings have demonstrated a need for more detailed, qualitative to ensure that survey methodologies best reflect current on-the-ground realities.

This study’s scope included independents and the Australian Greens and has not considered if there are significant differences for major parties or minor parties without the activist history or identity of these groups. Additionally, barring Kooyong, there are no significant overlaps in the electorates targeted, and local considerations may play a role in the choice of campaigning activities. Further research should look to major parties and draw out the role of context by considering a single electorate case study.

Field campaigns are a site of substantial political participation that engages supporters in institutional politics through elections. The findings presented here have shown differences between independent and party campaigns, illuminating the variety of activities conducted and expanding the definition of field campaigns. This research expands scholarly understanding of the role of institutional knowledge in party campaigns and lays the ground for future work on field campaigns and independents. Finally, the variety and novelty of activities will likely be of note for campaigners, as they seek new approaches to engage supporters. New actors may be more likely to develop new approaches, but changes can, and perhaps should, be found in parties too.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department of Education, Australian Governement.

Notes on contributors

Phoebe Hayman

Phoebe Hayman is a PhD candidate in Politics, Philosophy and Media at La Trobe University, researching election campaigns, community organising and campaign organisation. Her doctoral thesis examines the 2022 ‘teal’ campaigns as a case study of shifting norms in political participation.

Notes

1 See Appendix 1 for the schedule of interviews.

2 Banner waving was described as an element in Greens campaigns in the Australian Capital Territory and a feature of Zali Steggall’s campaigns before 2022. It was one of the central elements of many independent campaigns, particularly those in New South Wales. It was considered by several interviewees as new, something invented by a member of their campaign in 2022.

3 Kooyong’s ‘living mural’ was a response to a mural in support of Monique Ryan’s campaign being painted over as part of a dispute regarding whether permission had been granted. Volunteers gathered at the intersection where the mural had been with campaign materials.