Category: Negative Campaigning

Written by Annemarie Walter and Cees van der Eijk.

Negative campaigning is a widely applied campaign practice[1] and was part of the 2015 general election campaign. Negative campaigning occurs when a party chooses to focus on criticizing the opponent’s weaknesses instead of advocating own strengths when communicating with voters.[2] A party resorts to attack behaviour in an attempt to become voters’ preferred party by diminishing positive feelings for opposing parties.[3] Practitioners of negative campaigning generally believe it to be a successful campaign tool.[4] However, contrary to popular belief there is little scientific evidence that the practice of negative campaigning is effective.[5]

Whether a party decides to make use of negative campaigning depends on the expected balance between what the party will gain and the risk the party faces. Although negative campaigning has the potential to strengthen parties’ electoral attractiveness, the use of negative campaign messages is not without risk. Attack behaviour can result in negative feelings towards the attacker instead of the target.[6] This is the so-called “backlash” or “boomerang” effect. Therefore, only when the expected benefits outweigh the risks involved parties resort to attack behaviour.[7] Recently, we examined whether the use of negative campaigning helped British parties to improve their electoral attractiveness in the 2015 general election campaign. 

By Caitlin Milazzo and Jesse Hammond

The 2015 general election campaign was rife with promises. Amidst those made about immigration, the NHS, and Britain’s relationship with Europe, we also heard repeated pledges from party leaders that their campaigns were – and would remain – positive. The reality, however, was quite different. By the start of the short campaign, many Tories were expressing concern that the party’s negative campaigning was having a detrimental effect on support and would prevent David Cameron from securing a majority in Parliament. Cameron was quick to defend his party’s positive message, but his defence sounded hollow when he went on to warn the public of the potential dangers of an SNP-Labour alliance in the same interview.

Someone listening to that interview might have questioned the Prime Minister’s definition of a negativity. While his statements were arguably not overly personal or derogatory, his message was most certainly negative in that it contained a less-than-flattering message about his party’s opponents – and that is the classic definition of a negative appeal. Discussing your opponent(s) can take many forms. For example, you might refer to their policy positions, qualifications (or lack thereof), or in the case of a sitting MP, to their previous record. But the content is almost always negative in the sense that it focuses on the weaknesses of the opponent.