The Modernization of Door-to-Door Canvassing in the Socialist Party. The Reinvention of a Campaigning Repertoire and Partisan Inertia

The Socialist party undertook a door-to-door campaign of unprecedented scale and character during the presidential election in 2012. This operation was the product of the mobilization of three young activists involved in Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008, who helped to spread it in France. These reformers set out a door-to-door procedure that does not conform to the pragmatic and intuitive forms of this traditional practice. They espouse a rationalized approach to door-to-door which, according to them, must be managed, systematized, targeted, and quantified. The article analyzes this rationalization of door-to-door practice, emphasizing the reasons for its success, but also the limitations it faces.