The Macro-Level Driving Factors of Negative Campaigning in Europe

Abstract

Covering the largest sample of countries to date, this study examines the effect of three country-specific factors on the tone of electoral campaigns across Europe: electoral system disproportionality, party system fragmentation and the polarization of the electorate. We use an original dataset of statements made by political actors during 18 electoral campaigns in 9 European countries. Our multinomial logit model suggests that increasing disproportionality slightly increases negativity, while thanks to parties competing on the same market less polarized electorates invite more negative political campaigns. Finally, we find a U-shaped relationship between party system fragmentation and negativity: increasing the number of parties negativity decreases first, only to start increasing again once the party system becomes very fragmented. We explain this with parties altering their coalition strategies with the changing number of parties: less fragmentation makes it more likely to having to step into coalition with the competitors, thus decreasing negativity, while in very fragmented systems, parties not needed to any potential coalitions become easy targets to negative campaign.

Attack politics from Albania to Zimbabwe: A large-scale comparative study on the drivers of negative campaigning

“…We use the formula of Laakso and Taagepera (1979) to measure the total effective number of candidates (ENC), which yields a number reflecting the number of competing candidates with a similar strength. Controlling for the ENC is important, as recent research suggests that party system fragmentation has a role to play in the overall level of negativity of the campaign ( Papp and Patkós, 2019 ). Descriptive statistics for all variables are in Table A4 (Appendix A) (available at the following Open Science Foundation (OSF) repository: https://osf.io/4vhea/ ).…”

“…Fifth, of course, structural differences in political systems across countries go well beyond the rather simple dichotomy between countries with PR and majoritarian systems. Recent research shows indeed that additional elements, like electoral system disproportionality or the polarization of the electorate, can have an important role to play as well ( Papp and Patkós, 2019 ).…”

Patterns of Negative Campaigning during the 2019 European Election: Political Parties’ Facebook Posts and Users’ Sharing Behaviour across Twelve Countries

“…At the societal level, this finding indicates that even when parties are not overly negative in their communication strategies, the greater interactions with negative posts mean that the campaign might feel more negative in its tone than it actually is. Unintended, but negative effects of this might be boosting citizens' disenchantment with politics and reducing their trust in politics, potentially leading to disengagement of citizens in democratic processes (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1995;Papp & Patkós, 2019).…”

Natężenie kampanii negatywnych w Polsce w latach 2007–2019

“…Ponadto atakowanie konkurentów politycznych może w przyszłości utrudniać partiom zawieranie koalicji zarówno z powodu wytworzenia się resentymentów między atakującymi się nawzajem siłami, ale też trudnością z wyjaśnieniem wyborcom zawarcia koalicji z kimś, kogo w czasie kampanii się bezlitośnie krytykowało 39 . U-kształna forma zależności między liczbą partii a natężeniem kampanii negatywnej została potwierdzona w pracy Zsófi i Papp i Veroniki Patkós 40 . Autorki podążają za argumentacją Walter, wskazując, że kluczowymi bodźcami dla strategicznego atakowania przeciwników politycznych są obawa przed efektem bumerangowym i odpływem zwolenników do innych partii oraz budowanie przyszłych koalicji rządowych.…”