When conflict fuels negativity. A large-scale comparative investigation of the contextual drivers of negative campaigning in elections worldwide

Paying for ads or getting into the news? How parties persuade citizens of their issue competence during an election campaign

During campaigns, parties must defend their reputation of competence on issues to persuade citizens to vote for them (issue ownership). Consequently, what are the most effective strategies to achieve this? I argue that direct (advertising) and indirect (media coverage) communication strategies have different effects on citizens' perception of party competence. To analyze the impact of campaign dynamics on citizens, I use three data sources: an individual rolling cross-section panel, a media coverage analysis, and a parties' advertisements analysis. I link those data on a daily basis to capture the dynamics of parties' communication and citizens' opinion. The results show that advertisements help parties to win and maintain their issue ownership, while media coverage only helps parties to maintain their ownership. The study has scientific and practical implications with regard to party strategy, campaigns, and citizens' perceptions of parties.

The Electoral Consequences of Affective Polarization? Negative Voting in the 2020 US Presidential Election

About one third of American voters cast a vote more "against" than "for" a candidate in the 2020 Presidential election. This pattern, designated by negative voting, has been initially understood by rational choice scholarship as a product of cognitive dissonance and/or retrospective evaluations. This article revisits this concept through the affective polarization framework in the light of the rise of political sectarianism in American society. Based on an original CAWI survey fielded after the 2020 election, our regression analysis demonstrates that the predicted probability of casting a negative vote significantly increases among individuals for whom out-candidate hate outweighs in-candidate love. Negative voting is less prevalent among partisans as their higher levels of in-group affection can offset out-group contempt. By asserting the enduring relevance of negative voting in American presidential elections, we aim at stimulating further research and discussion of its implications for democratic representation.