Mapping the drivers of negative campaigning: Insights from a candidate survey

Jürgen Maier,Alessandro Nai

doi:10.1177/0192512121994512

Jürgen Maier, Alessandro Nai

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512121994512

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Abstract

Which candidates are more likely to go negative, and under which conditions? We analyze self-reported survey data from candidates having run in the 2017 German federal election for the main parties. More specifically, we test a comprehensive set of factors supposed to drive the use of (a) negative campaigning in general, (b) policy attacks, and (c) character attacks. Our results show that for all three versions of negative campaigning the political profile of candidates is most important, followed by personality traits, perceived campaign dynamics, social profile, and available campaign resources. Within these categories, five factors are important across the board: members of the governing parties are less likely to attack, ‘extreme ideology’ of the candidate fuels the use of attack politics, candidates who believe that the media can persuade voters attack more often, disagreeable candidates tend to go negative, and male candidates are more likely to attack than females.

Highlights

In election campaigns, parties and candidates seek to persuade citizens to vote for them instead of voting for their political opponents
Via survey data covering more than 800 candidates of the most important parties competing in the 2017 German federal election, we explore to what extent their profiles drive their communication strategies, distinguishing between general attack behavior, policy attacks, and character attacks
The results show that the explanatory power of political profile is the highest (5.7%) followed by personality traits (3.7%), the campaign dynamics (3.4%) and a candidate’s social profile (1.3%)

Summary

Introduction

Parties and candidates seek to persuade citizens to vote for them instead of voting for their political opponents. Research has paid great attention to the ‘negative packaging’ of content—that is, negative campaigning. The reasons for this are at least twofold. Some scholars claim that negative campaigning has been increasing over time. This is true for the United States (Fowler et al, 2016: 53; Geer, 2012); the situation for Europe is less clear-cut (Walter, 2014). Negative campaigning can potentially have ‘corrosive’ effects on democracy—for example, demobilizing voters and increasing political cynicism (Ansolabehere and Iyengar, 1995; Cappella and Jamieson, 1997). Due to the significance of negative campaigning, it is important to understand the impact of attacks, and who uses them and when

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