The Ontology of Political Relationship Marketing: a Systematic Literature Review

The political marketing interdisciplinary field of study has always been affected by marketing concepts; the relationship approach is one of those that brings about a new trend of research some of which is known as Political Relationship Marketing (PRM). This research has as its main objective to review and summarize the literature on PRM and to explain the fundamental concepts in shaping it. Moreover, due to scattered research ont PRM and also lack of a comprehensive framework for applying it, the qualitative research method of Systematic Literature Review was used. Domestic and foreign authentic databases were used to search and thematic analysis technique was applied to analyze the data. The results showed that six central categories have had the highest frequency in our research: political market research, political marketing communication, political marketing strategy, post-election political marketing, internal political marketing and political branding. The consequences indicate that researchers by putting the classical thinking of political marketing aside believe that relational political interactions can enhance collaboration and coopetition instead of inappropriate political conflicts. The scientific and practical importance of PRM requires its playing a maximum role at macro and micro levels of management so that it could come to fruition. Interactions between political entities and people should be societal and continuous instead of isolated and periodical. Moving toward this desired state requires political stakeholders’ change in thinking and acting if they want to show more committed long-term interactions.