Negative Campaigning and the Logic of Retaliation in Multiparty Competition

Abstract

The extant literature has demonstrated that the logic of retaliation is a core feature of negative campaigning. Attacks by one side induce counterattacks by the other. Yet most research on the interactive nature of negative campaigning is limited to two-party competition and provides little theoretical justification for why political actors should respond to attacks with counterattacks. The present paper addresses these research gaps. We argue that the negativity bias in human information processing and the zero-sum nature of elections make retaliation a rational strategy. Importantly, these arguments also imply that retaliation may not be the only plausible response to attacks in multiparty systems. Rather, parties may prefer to react to attacks from one competitor by attacking another. To grasp empirically how being attacked and attacking are related, we conduct a highly disaggregated time series analysis of such instances while controlling for other factors that may influence actor behavior. Our analyses draw on several thousand party press releases issued during three national election campaigns in Austria, a typical European multiparty system. They show that retaliation is an important strategy also in multiparty politics. Yet in such context, parties do not exclusively follow a tit-for-tat approach but rather display more complex patterns of attack behavior.

Negative campaigning and its consequences: a review and a look ahead

“…Recent research further attests that parties retaliate attacks from their competitors, which mirrors expectations from the USA (Dolezal et al 2016). Moreover, there is a division of labor within parties: Cabinet members or party leaders refrain from negative campaigning, whereas party floor leaders and general secretaries will attack rival parties and candidates (Dolezal et al 2017).…”

Going Negative, Worldwide: Towards a General Understanding of Determinants and Targets of Negative Campaigning

“…Third, candidates that are ideologically distant are expected to engage in more negative campaigning than ideologically close candidates. Empirical evidence for this effect is mixed – some studies find that distance increases negativity (Dolezal et al 2015; Elmelund-Praestekaer 2008), while other find exactly the opposite (Curini and Martelli 2010; Walter 2014). We believe that ideological distance between candidates provides incentives to attack for the same reason that increasing polarization of party systems has been shown to foster negativity (e.g.…”

“…In lay terms, this simply equals expecting that candidates are more likely to attack each other than attack other candidates in the race. The rationale for such expectation draws from the literature showing a ‘logic of retaliation’ in negative campaigning (Damore 2002; Dolezal et al 2016; Druckman et al 2010; Song et al 2017), according to which negativity can be induced by attacks from opponents. The reasons supporting this trend remain under-theorized, but seem relatively intuitive nonetheless (Dolezal et al 2016): candidates have a strategic incentive to respond to negativity with another attack, because failing to do so might create in the eyes of the voter the image that candidates are ineffective or uncommitted to the issues at stake.…”

Contrapropaganda: aplicação da estratégia negativa nos cartazes das eleições legislativas e presidenciais portuguesas de 2001 a 2016

“…Ressalvamos ainda a utilização de um conceito que se aproxima da contrapropaganda -a "campanha política negativa" -, que é objeto de estudo de investigações recentes, que discutem a sua importância, sublinhando a sua relevância (e.g. Dolezal, Ennser-Jedenastik & Müller, 2016;Dolezal, Ennser-Jedenastik & Müller, 2015;Gatterman, 2017;Gross & Johnson, 2016;Russmann, 2014;Sampaio, 2011;Walter, 2013).…”