Including voters as part of the solution in our political narratives

Including voters as part of the solution in our political narratives

​​The concepts of political narratives and storytelling are familiar to any party official, campaign manager or candidate. In every campaign that political parties start, the priority is to identify which messages or slogans can better resonate with the voters. Yet, these narratives and messages are often tailored to explain why the voter has a problem and why your political party has the solution. A common approach to the problem is all too often the call to action. Yet we have seen in modern politics that people, especially younger voters like to be part of the solution. People are more likely to engage in a story where they have a role to play in it.

Political parties in the broad ideological spectrum spend thousands on marketing consultants to find the right messages. These consultants tell us to build our narratives to “lead” others, not as an engagement tool. In my political experience as an engagement consultant, I recall meeting a “public speaking” coach around five years ago. He came to me to offer his services in training a political leader in the organisation I was working for. He emphasised several times that he had trained politicians and social leaders for around 15 years. We ended up not working together after he said: