The Potential of Big Data for the Cross-National Study of Political Behavior

The U.S. presidential elections of 2008 and 2012 were a coming out party for Big Data applications in electoral studies. The Obama campaign developed a model of identifying individual voters that guided their campaign strategy to a successful outcome. This essay considers whether this model is exportable to elections and other aspects of political behavior in cross-national research. There is uneven development to date, but a growing awareness of the potential of Big Data electoral campaigns. More broadly, the essay discusses the current potential and limits of Big Data for the cross-national study of political behavior. The potential exceeds the actual applications, and there are major challenges for academic, theory-testing research using Big Data methods. It is unclear whether Big Data can successfully address these challenges.