Deepening the rift: Negative campaigning fosters affective polarization in multiparty elections

Abstract

This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on affective polarization by examining the understudied role of party rhetoric on partisan divides in the electorate. Despite a recent growth of research on affective polarization in multiparty systems, no study tests the effect of negative campaigning on affective polarization outside the US. This paper tests whether negative campaigning between parties during electoral campaigns is associated with higher levels of affective polarization. Combining data from the CSES and an expert survey on party rhetoric, we analyze data from sixteen countries (seventeen elections) and eighty-six parties, and present the first large scale analysis of the effect of party rhetoric on affective polarization. Our results show that affective polarization is larger between parties adopting a negative tone. We also show more specifically that affective polarization is higher for individuals whose party attacks or is attacked by the other party. In addition, we find that the positive association between attacks and affective polarization increases with partisan strength.