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Western world voters are becoming more difficult to predict in today's world, and party systems are less stable. As a result, citizens' electoral behavior poses challenges to these fundamental theories. In the case of Lithuania, there is also no single logic explaining electoral behavior. In times of current technological advances, people are experiencing vast amounts of information every day. Politicians need to find ways to adapt to this rapidly changing and the overwhelming environment in order not to lose public support. As with commercial manufacturers, they need to make much effort to remain visible and relevant. It is becoming increasingly common in the academic world to see political parties or politicians equation with brands. Turning to brand in politics, R. J. Dalton calls it the inevitable consequence of the increasing electoral volatility and the active use of marketing principles by the parties. A different approach to the relationship between the elector and the party is now gaining popularity: application of the principles and the concept of the brand. Thus, considering as those classical theories in the context of both Lithuania and the Western World make it increasingly difficult to explain the electoral behavior, it becomes relevant to analyze parties as brands for voters. The main object of thesis is four main Lithuanian political parties brands: TS-LKD, LVŽS, LSDP, and LRLS. This work aims to investigate political parties as brands from the perspective of the Lithuanian voter. For this aim to be achieved, three questions are raised: 1) From the perspective of the voter, what brands have established the main parties of Lithuania? 2) What is the value of the brands of Lithuanian political parties? What are the differences in values depending on the voter's political preferences? 3) What are the differences between the brands of Lithuanian political parties, depending on the political preferences of the voter? In order to answer these questions, the following tasks are posed: 1) Analyze the theoretical concept of a brand from a voter perspective and present the main theoretical assumptions of a voter-oriented political brand; 2) Reasonably select research methodology - discuss the methods already proposed, choose the best one to reveal the aim, set analytical units; 3) Conduct a political brand value study, identify brand values and key features, identify differences, and compare it by voters' party preferences. Based on the main theoretical assumptions of the field of this research, the central unit of the analysis of this research was the respondent's association about the political brand. In order to answer the main questions raised in this work, lists of the most repetitive associations were formed; also, the favorability, strength, and uniqueness of the provided associations were evaluated. The research has shown that the TS-LKD has established a trusted party brand in front of its voters; LVŽS voters positively evaluated the ongoing changes in Lithuania; LSDP voters are experiencing a phase of renewal; LRLS voters are still experiencing the consequences of a corruption scandal, but this brand is first and foremost associated with tolerance. It also turned out that the strongest brand in the presence of its voters was the LVŽS party, but it is paradoxical that it is the most negative in the face of other voters. Also, the positive relationship between the TS-LKD and the LRLS voters was discovered. Nationally, political parties have not been analyzed as brands yet. Since the research sample is not representative of the Lithuanian population, this research is trying to raise a new problem for future research. The results would be more significant if the study of such a method was performed with a representative sample. This work opens up new research spaces in order to better understand the behavior of the Lithuanian electorate, to look deeper into Lithuanian parties through the eyes of voters. |
