Permanent Campaign: Three Glances on the Same Phenomenon from The Americas Campaña permanente: tres miradas de un mismo fenómeno desde las Américas

Abstract

This article provides a state-of-the-art review of the permanent campaign in the Americas, examining it both as a concept and as a political and communicative phenomenon. It analyzes three geographically situated scholarly traditions within the continent: the United States, Canada, and Latin America. The research organizes existing approaches around six causal categories commonly used to address the phenomenon. However, upon identifying a methodological gap in causal articulation, the study employs process tracing to construct three exploratory theoretical models that unify these approaches. This facilitates progress toward the hypothesis that the permanent campaign constitutes a presidential strategy generating path dependence, thereby altering the democratic conditions from which it emerges. In this vein, the article proposes a new taxonomy of governmental communication. While the research does not empirically test these theories, it establishes a critical distinction between the permanent campaign and personalism, argues that this strategy is not exclusive to left-wing governments, and posits the potential for studying diverse cases or case clusters in Latin America through the integration of historical institutionalism and process tracing.