In Times of Peace, Prepare for War: Negative Interaction Between Political Actors outside and during Campaigns.

In recent years we have witnessed a significant rise in citizens' dissatisfaction with politics. One of the causes is the negativity between political actors, that has been shown to decrease participation in elections, lower political trust, and give rise to polarisation. Despite the fact that the effects of negativity in politics are well known, little is known about the occurrence of negativity—or even incivility—itself. Most studies focus exclusively on negativity in election campaigns and on a single country/election case. By contrast, this project will tackle negative interactions between political actors in a longitudinal study in three countries outside and during of electoral campaigns. My objective is to study negativity, basically defined as any criticism or attack directed towards a political competitor, in a multidimensional way (taking into account the type, content, specificity and extremity of the attack). I will look for explanations on different levels, trying to come to a scientific understanding of when negativity occurs, by looking at trends over time and differences between actors, issues, venues and countries. An analysis will be based on data from Belgium, Croatia, and the United Kingdom; looking at the actors' interactions that took place in parliament and media during the period of 1990-2020. The project output will allow to speculate about which factors could remedy the extensive use of negativity.

Keywords:COMMUNICATION, COMPARATIVE POLITICS, INTERACTIONS

Disciplines:Comparative politics, Political communication