Search

Copyright of Swiss Political Science Review is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research investigates how existing political and legal instruments can affect democratic power structures and civil society and examines prospects for their development. The article seeks to analyze current views and approaches related to negative campaigning, its sociopolitical perception, and countermeasures by looking at them through the lens of post‐Soviet countries and states within the Anglo‐Saxon legal tradition. Hence, the study views negative campaigning as a practice undermining democracy. We provide reliable evidence that Western nations are more likely to take a liberal approach to negative campaigning and assign it the role of a political struggle element. In addition, we found multiple confirmations that legislators in Russia have been toughening measures against negative campaigning and general defamation‐related rules. Related Articles: Caillier, James. 2010. "Citizen Trust, Political Corruption, and Voting Behavior: Connecting the Dots." Politics & Policy 38(5): 1015–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00267.x Craig, Stephen C., and Paulina S. Rippere. 2014. "Political Trust and Negative Campaigns: Two Tests of the Figure‐Ground Hypothesis." Politics & Policy 42(5): 693–743. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12091 Jones, David A., Kathleen Ferraiolo, and Jennifer Byrne. 2011. "Selective Media Exposure and Partisan Differences about Sarah Palin's Candidacy." Politics & Policy 39(2): 195–221. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17471346.2011.00288.x [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common narrative portrays Donald Trump as impetuous and quick to anger, thin skinned, constantly lying, brazen, vulgar, and boasting a grandiose sense of self and his accomplishments. Little systematic evidence exists that this is the case, however. With a novel data set based on expert ratings, we (1) provide systematic empirical evidence about Trump's personality profile, (2) contrast his profile with 21 other populist leaders and 82 mainstream candidates having competed in recent elections worldwide, and (3) discuss the implications of such an extreme profile in terms of campaigning style and the use of negative and emotional campaigns. Our results illustrate Trump's off‐the‐charts personality and campaigning style and suggest that even when compared with other abrasive, narcissistic, and confrontational political figures, he stands out as an outlier among the outliers. We conclude by discussing the implications and potential outcomes of such an extreme personality profile for Trump's policy style and achievements while in office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political crowdfunding is a relatively new process. Research has sought to unveil its functioning in particular case studies. However, crowdfunding in electoral campaigns remains largely unexplored and little is known about why some candidates are more likely to attain targeted donation levels than others. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes the use of crowdfunding in the 2017 U.K. General Election campaign. It aims to explain the variation in candidates' ability to reach the proposed targets. The analysis uses original data collected from 100 crowdfunding projects, campaign websites, and the social media pages of the candidates during the campaign. The findings indicate that candidates with an aggressive message, who are realistic about their proposed target and who are already in office, are more likely to gather donations closer to their targets. Related Articles: Brogan, Michael J., and Jonathan Mendilow. 2012. "The Telescoping Effects of Public Campaign Funding: Evaluating the Impact of Clean Elections in Arizona, Maine, and New Jersey." Politics & Policy 40 (3): 492‐518. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00353.x Jäckle, Sebastian, and Thomas Metz. 2017. "Beauty Contest Revisited: The Effects of Perceived Attractiveness, Competence, and Likability on the Electoral Success of German MPs." Politics & Policy 45 (4): 495‐534. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12209 Lavery, Lesley. 2013. "Gender Bias in the Media? An Examination of Local Television News Coverage of Male and Female House Candidates." Politics & Policy 41 (6): 877‐910. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12051 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although academic research has yielded mixed results, candidates and consultants are rational people whose experience persuades them that “going negative” can be an effective campaign strategy under the right circumstances. And they are almost certainly right, even if their evidence is more anecdotal than systematic. This article considers whether the impact of negative ads is moderated by perceptions of issue ownership, a factor that is known to affect the candidate preferences of some voters. Focusing on the attitudes of those who identify with the party of the targeted candidate, we examine the changes in support and favorability induced by four policy-based attacks against a hypothetical congressional incumbent seeking reelection. Results from an Internet survey experiment suggest that attacks are somewhat more effective among target co-partisans who do not believe that their party is more competent to handle the issue in question, especially when that issue is salient to the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I relied on the subjective group dynamics framework to analyse the derogation of inparty candidates involved in negative campaigns. In an experimental study (dynamic simulation of an electoral campaign, N = 118), I found that participants downgraded the inparty candidate (both in terms of evaluation and vote choice) more when he ran a person-based negative campaign than when he ran an issue-based negative campaign. This effect was significant for participants with high levels of political identification only. Overall, the findings revealed that political candidates, as members of significant social groups, are not exempt from the forms of extremity in evaluations typically observed in other social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the consequences of respectful versus disrespectful communication in political debates on voters' social judgments and voting decisions. Reconciling previously mixed results, we argue that the consequences of disrespect vary with the judgment dimension (communion vs. agency) and voters' moral identity. An initial study ( N = 197) finds that a political candidate's disrespect towards his or her opponent affects voting decision through voting intention. A second study ( N = 327) shows that disrespect influences voting intention through communion but not through agency ratings. Qualifying the previous finding, a third study ( N = 329) shows that both communion and agency judgments act as mediators, but in different ways depending on the level of moral identity. Overall, communion judgments played a more prominent part in explaining the consequences of disrespectful communication. Our findings thus present a nuanced picture of respect and disrespect in political communication and shed light on their ramifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative political ads are increasingly ubiquitous in presidential campaigns but most of the public do not directly observe these ads. Instead they become aware of these negative attacks through the press. Recent scholarship finds that the news media incentivizes presidential campaigns to go negative as it will generate more free coverage compared to positive advertisements. However, scholarship has yet to examine the framing of this free coverage. Through a content analysis of New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today's coverage of the controversial Swift Boat Veteran's for Truth ads during the 2004 presidential election, this study evaluates whether free media is synonymous with wanted coverage. We find that news coverage provides both benefits and disadvantages for the presidential campaigns associated with the negative ads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite what many Americans believe, there is little evidence that increased campaign negativity has contributed to the loss of public trust in government in recent decades. In this article, we consider the relationship between negative campaigning and trust in a different light. The 'figure-ground hypothesis' suggests that negative information is more likely than positive information to shape people's attitudes and behavior, in part because negativity 'stands out' in a world where most of us have positive expectations of others. Accordingly, we posit that negative campaign ads are most effective among those who possess a high level of trust in their political leaders. The catch is that high trust is uncommon in U.S. politics today, in which case negative appeals may play to a smaller audience than in the past. Our data indicate, however, that a well-conceived negative campaign ad can influence voter choice regardless of one's feelings about government. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A candidate for political office has private information about his and his rival's qualifications. A more informative positive (negative) campaign generates a more accurate public signal about his own (his rival's) qualifications, but costs more. A high type candidate has a comparative advantage in negative campaigns if, relative to the low type, he can lower the voter's belief about his rival more effectively than he can raise her belief about himself and vice versa. In equilibrium, this comparative advantage determines whether the high type chooses a positive or negative campaign. Further, competition helps the high type separate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using individual data on Swiss federal ballots (VOX data) and an original dataset on the evolution and content of political campaigns, this article elucidates how negative campaigning influences individual turnout during Swiss federal ballots. It hypothesises that the effect of negativism on turnout depends on 'which camp goes dirty' and, specifically, on the direction of the political campaign ('status quo' versus 'policy change' campaigns). A series of multilevel models provide strong support for the hypotheses, by showing that high negativism in 'status quo campaigns' decreases individual turnout, whereas high negativism for 'policy change campaigns' increases it. It is argued here that this could depend on the emotional responses triggered by negativism in political campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared negative and positive ads in the context of a fictitious election. Participants read a strong or weak message supporting one candidate (positive ad) or derogating the opposition candidate (negative ad). The strong positive message had a greater impact on attitudes toward the candidates than the weak positive message, but message strength had no significant effect for negative messages, suggesting that positive messages are centrally processed, and negative messages serve mainly as peripheral cues. Accordingly, a strong positive message was more effective than a weak positive message, but a weak positive message was less effective than a weak negative message. We conclude that negative political ads are advisable only when candidates cannot provide strong arguments to support their candidacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the widespread use of negative campaigns, research has not yet provided unambiguous conclusions about their effects. So far studies, however, have mainly focused on very explicit measures. The main goal of the present work was to explore the effects of different types of negative campaigns on both implicit and explicit attitudes, as well as in relation to two basic dimensions of social perception, namely competence and warmth. Across a series of three studies, we basically showed that not all negative campaigns lead to the same consequences. Specifically, especially personal attacks toward the opposing candidate may backfire at the explicit level. More interestingly, at an implicit level, the reliance on negative messages was associated with more negative spontaneous affective responses toward the source, but also with a spontaneous conformity to such a source. Overall, it appeared that negative messages decreased the perceived warmth of the source while simultaneously increasing the perceived competence. Results are discussed by focusing on the importance of implicit measures in political psychology and on the crucial role of perceived competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in political campaigning in Scandinavian countries is inadequate, and research in negative campaigning is entirely non-existent. A ‘negative campaign message’ is defined as an explicit critique of the political opponent. Applying this definition to the 2005 Danish election indicates that negative campaigning comprises a very limited aspect of the political campaigning in the course of this election. The opposition tends to employ negative tactics the most in their attempts to establish their political platform. The media provided extensive coverage to the few negative campaign messages, thus presenting a biased sense of the political campaign to the general public. This biased media coverage encourages parties to ‘go negative’ in their respective campaigns in the battle for media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• For years there has been an ongoing debate as to the role and impact that 'marketing' has had on politics. Yet, it is the case that many of the concepts associated with the field of marketing have real relevance and have, in fact, been employed within the field of political campaigning for many decades. This is an empirical paper that focuses upon the concept of political brands and the impact that current trends in campaign strategy, and in particular the growth and continued use of negative campaigning, have upon them. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, the implications associated with such activity are examined and, in particular, its effect upon the consumer/brand relationship. • Within the consideration of the results, it becomes clear that political brands' use of negative campaigning is somewhat shortsighted; offering short-term gains but at the cost of long-term damage not only to their brand image but also to the wider democratic system as it stands. In a search for political 'brands' that more effectively meet their needs, there appears a tendency for political consumers to now look outside of the conventional political sector. The emergent concept of the 'negative brand' is explored together with the implications for political consumers, political brands and the wider field of conventional party politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When will people become ambivalent about politics? One possibility is that the roots of ambivalence lie within the individual, with differences in political knowledge and attitude strength predicting whether a person internalizes the conflicts of politics. Alternately, attitudinal ambivalence could result from structural differences in the way political choices are presented in the wider political environment. We explore the degree to which different environments promote or limit ambivalence using a matching approach in conjunction with a set of multilevel models. We find that campaign environments can induce candidate ambivalence. In presidential elections, campaign efforts promote ambivalence most when competition between partisan campaign efforts is high. In House elections, campaign spending has a direct effect on levels of candidate ambivalence, where a candidate's spending decreases ambivalence about that candidate and increases ambivalence about opponents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional wisdom suggests that political consultants encourage candidates to “go negative” and to accept the ethos of winning election at any cost. However, recent studies indicate that some campaign professionals draw ethical distinctions between different forms of negative campaigning. While there is a growing literature on campaign consultants, less is known about their influence on those running for political office. Using a nationwide survey of candidates, we find that those who wage professional campaigns are more likely than those who wage amateur campaigns to consider it acceptable to use negative campaign tactics and to find it appropriate to raise issues against an opponent concerning legal infractions. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that candidates' acceptance of personalized attacks, which critics judge to be most harmful to democracy, are not attributable to consultants, but rather to other factors and incentives inherent in the U.S. electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over the effect of negative campaigns on vote turnout has not been settled. At present, studies demonstrating a mobilization effect seem to have the upper hand. However, neither side has offered a compelling theory of the causal mechanisms that connect negative campaigns and voter turnout. This paper identifies three mechanisms of voter motivation—republican duty, candidate threat, and perceived closeness of the election—and tests the influence of negative ads on each. The findings suggest that each works to plausibly translate exposure to negative advertisement into increased participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some studies of negative campaign advertising's impact argue that a backlash or “boomerang effect” exists. However, the appropriate conceptualization of a boomerang effect might not be an immediate backlash against the sponsor but a delayed response that comes after repeated exposure to negative campaign advertisements. We conducted an experiment using a variation of the pretest-posttest control group design in which treatment groups were exposed to varying numbers of negative campaign advertisements. There is a parabolic effect of repeated exposure to negative advertisements that is gender specific. Among women, the sponsor initially benefits from an enhanced image but suffers a decline in image when the voters become overexposed to negative advertisements. A reconceptualization of the “boomerang effect” of negative campaign advertising is in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports the results of three studies on the effects of negative campaigning on vote, semantic differential and thought listing. Discussion on whether negative campaigning is effective; Introduction of a variable to offset the negativity effect; Replication of the second study with a cross-cultural sample; Discussion of results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that an urgent appeal has been launched by the Reporters Without Borders on behalf of Mohamed Benchicou whose health is deteriorating. Benchicou has been imprisoned in Algiers, Algeria for campaigning against Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the 2004 presidential elections.