Producing Politics

Uncovers the hidden and powerful role campaign professionals play in shaping American democracy by delving into the exclusive world of politicos through off-the-record interviews

In theory, political campaigns, and those who work on them, get to know communities of potential voters, communicate their concerns with the candidate, and make sure they are motivated to vote. In The Room Where It Happens, sociologist Daniel Laurison reveals how contemporary campaigns tend to be performances more than conversations: one-way communications where consultants, staff, and candidates send the messages they think will be most effective to the people they believe are most likely to be determinative for election results.

Using his own observations of campaigns as well as interviews with key political players, Laurison demonstrates how political campaigns are riddled with implicit bias, unquestioned conventional wisdom, and other imperfections that shape the way voters vote. Campaign staffers tend to be white men from middle- or upper-class backgrounds, and these staffers often go on to work for their candidates when they enter into office-affecting not only the demographics of our political elite but the policy they make.

Laurison illustrates how the norms and structures of the politics industry shape campaigns' and politicians' actions to give us politics nobody understands, which exacerbates polarizations, turns people away from politics, and perpetuates inequality. The Room Where It Happens is a close look at the structure and culture of a single occupation-political professionals-whose actions are consequential for our democracy as a whole.