The Decision to Go Negative: Election Types, Candidate Characteristics, and Electoral Competition

Abstract

This study examined the conditions that motivate candidates to go negative during a parliamentary election campaign. We argue that by-elections encourage candidates to engage in more negative campaigning. Three mechanisms might explain the alleged link: time pressure, media exposure, and voter turnout. Two main factors jointly determine which candidates rely heavily on negative campaigning during by-elections: candidate characteristics and electoral competition. New data collected from press coverage of Taiwanese legislative elections (2008–2022), covering 318 campaigns in single-member electoral districts, were analysed using the qualitative comparative analysis method. We modelled negative campaigning as a combination of a list of potential causal conditions. Thereafter, process-tracing methods were applied to analyse a typical case to demonstrate the internal causal mechanism. The qualitative comparative analysis results and the case study indicate that increased electoral competition causes parachute candidates to criticise political opponents during a by-election campaign, with less emphasis on their own policy proposals. These results suggest that researchers should pay close attention to important contextual factors that underlie candidates’ strategic choices, particularly during by-elections.