UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Negative campaigning in Western Europe: beyond the vote-seeking perspective Walter, A.S. Publication date 2012 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Walter, A. S. (2012). Negative campaigning in Western Europe: beyond the vote-seeking perspective. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:26 Sep 2021 Negative Campaigning in Western Europe: Beyond the Vote-Seeking Perspective Annemarie S. Walter Negative Campaigning in Western Europe: Beyond the Vote-Seeking Perspective ISBN 978-90-8570-780-6 Design Layout Madelief Brandsma, www.madeliefbrandsma.nl Illustration Cover Bas van der Schot, www.basvanderschot.com Print Wöhrmann Print Service, Zutphen ©2012 Annemarie Walter All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the proprietor. NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING IN WESTERN EUROPE: BEYOND THE VOTE-SEEKING PERSPECTIVE ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D. C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op donderdag 10 mei 2012, te 14:00 uur door Annemarie Sophie Walter geboren te Hengelo Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof. dr. W. van der Brug Co-promotoren: Dr. Ph. van Praag Prof. dr. C.E. de Vries Overige leden: Prof. dr. K.L.K. Brants Prof. dr. J. Kleinnijenhuis Dr. T.N. Ridout Prof. dr. J.N. Tillie Prof. dr. C.H. de Vreese Faculteit der Maatschappij- en Gedragswetenschappen “At the root of all politics is the universal language of conflict.” (Schattschneider, 1960: 2) Table of Contents List of Figures 7 List of Tables 8 Acknowledgments 9 Chapter 1: Negative Campaigning in Western Europe: Similar or Different? 11 Chapter 2: When the Gloves Come Off: Inter-Party Variation in Negative Campaigning 33 Chapter 3: Choosing the Enemy: Attack Behaviour in a Multiparty System 51 Chapter 4: When the Stakes are High: Party Competition and Negative Campaigning 71 Chapter 5: Women on the Battleground: Does Gender Condition the Use of Negative Campaigning? 89 Chapter 6: Summing Up: Negative Campaigning in Western Europe 107 including English Summary References 119 Appendix 133 Nederlandse Samenvatting 139 6 Tabel of Contents List of Figures Figure 1.1: Amount of Negative Campaigning in Parliamentary Election Campaigns 1980-2006 (Party Election Broadcasts) 26 Figure 1.2: Amount of Negative Campaigning in Parliamentary Election Campaigns 1980-2006 (Election Debates) 26 Figure 1.3: Amount of Trait Attacks in Parliamentary Election Campaigns 1980-2006 (Party Election Broadcasts) 28 Figure 1.4: Amount of Trait Attacks in Parliamentary Election Campaigns 1980-2006 (Election Debates) 28 Figure 2.1: Level of Negative Campaigning in Dutch Parliamentary Election Campaigns 1981-2010 (Party Election Broadcasts) 46 Figure 3.1: Predicted Probabilities Interaction Effect Government Status * Ideological Distance 66 Figure 3.2: Predicted Probabilities Interaction Effect Party Size * Ideological Distance 67 List of Figures 7 List of Tables Table 1.1: Country Differences and Trends over Time in Negative Campaigning 1980-2006 27 Table 2.1: The Effects of Party Characteristics on Negative Campaigning 47 Table 3.1: Logit Predictors of Party Attacked 63 Table 3.2: Percentage Points Changes in Predicted Probabilities Main Effects 65 Table 4.1: The Effects of Party Characteristics on Negative Campaigning in Western Europe 85 Table 4.2: The Effects of Party and Election Characteristics on Negative Campaigning in Western Europe 86 Table 5.1: Multivariate Relationships: Gender and Negative Campaigning 102 8 List of Tables Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of numerous people. I would like to take the opportunity here to thank them all. First of all, I would like to thank the AISSR and the program group Democratic Chal- lenges for financing this dissertation project. I am grateful to my supervisors Wouter van der Brug, Catherine de Vries and Philip van Praag for their time and suggestions over the last three and a half years. Without your guidance this dissertation would not have been finished and I would not be where I am today. I have learned a lot from all of you. Wouter, I would like to thank you for all your comments, practical statistical help and in particular the effort you have put in over the last months to enable me to finish ahead of time and start a new academic adventure. Catherine, thanks for all you have done for me, for your guidance especially at the beginning of my PhD, but also for your friend- ship. The fact that I could always come and talk to you about anything and that you offered me to come and stay with you in Switzerland when I was experiencing difficulties in life are things that I will not forget. Philip, thanks for sharing your knowledge on elec- tion campaigns and Dutch politics with me. I really enjoyed the fact that I could always come by and disturb you from your work just to talk about nothing in particular. I loved sharing my passion for archive material with you when all the number crunchers did not understand my enthusiasm. I hope to continue to make you all proud in the future. I am also indebted to Joop van Holsteyn and Huib Pellikaan, who inspired me during my earlier studies to pursue a PhD. I am grateful to Joop for helping me find my dissertation topic and over the years reading some of the chapters presented here. Huib, without your endless belief in my research potential and your support, I am not sure that I would have made it this far. The journey towards the completion of my disserta- tion would not have been half as much fun without my roommates who I have come to consider as my friends and hope to continue to see in the after PhD life. Daphne van der Pas, Elmar Jansen, Eefje Steenvoorden, Marc van der Wardt, Sjef van Stiphout and Sjoerdje van Heerden, it was a pleasure sharing an office with you and I miss you already. It must be quiet, but rather more productive without me. In addition, I would like to thank all my other friends in the political science PhD hallway for supporting me throughout this journey, in particular Bouchra Arbouai, Matthijs Rooduijn, Lutz Hofer, Jasper Blom, Benno Netelenbos and Agnieszka Walczak. I would also like to thank other members of the department who in one way or another contributed to my dissertation, in particular I would like to thank Tom van der Meer, Armen Hakverdian, Sarah de Lange, Laura Sudulich and Joost van Berkhout who I could always approach with my (non) statistical questions and Imke Harbers who was kind enough to arrange for her apartment to be passed onto me, which turned out to be a rather productive workspace. I would like to thank also the numerous students who have contributed to my data collection as student assistant or coder; Marije Willems, Julie Ruf, Eowyn Castle, Lucas Acknowledgements 9 Bourdrez, Michaela Schmid, Britta Wiessner, Felix Hummel, Anna O’Connor, Eefje Appel, Trinity Walker, Carina van der Wetering and Floor Vreeswijk. I could not have generated this new data set all by myself. I am grateful to the Fulbright Foundation for financing my research stay at the Political Science Department of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I would also like to thank Liesbeth Hooghe for inviting me and Erica Edwards for helping me out during my stay. I am grateful to Heather Folliard, Krystal Elwing, Jessica Davis and all other members of Encounter at the Hillsong Church Chapel Hill for their friendship when I was abroad, which meant a lot to me. Special thanks goes to Rens Vliegenthart who I co-authored my first article with and Stefaan Walgrave my APSA mentor who was kind enough to organize my first conference panel with me. I am appreciative to all members of the CPPC PhD club who read my articles, in particular Gijs Schumacher and Annemarie van Elfrinkhof. In addition, I would like to thank seve ral other academic scholars who I am in one way or another indebted to, namely Thijs Bol, Travis Ridout, John Geer, Margaret Scammell, Kees Brants, Emmett Buell, Michael MacKuen, Paul Djupe, Scott Desposato, Justin Kirkland, Christian Elmelund-Præstæker, Michael Meffert, Hajo Boomgaarden, Julia Partheymüller and Jan Kleinnijenhuis. A special thanks to my (non-UVA political science PhD) friends who have helped me to survive the ups and downs of my dissertation by distracting me with the other joys of life, Elisabeth Eenkhoorn, Trineke Palm, Simon Otjes, Sylvia Tidey, Madelijn Corver, Mariken van der Velden, Chantal Rappard, Jasmina Mackic, Janet van Klink, Saskia Rademaker, Nicole Jasperse and Charisse Huber.