Research conducted during the 2020 Viennese state election campaign (in Austria) found that perceived dirty campaigning increases anger, frustration, and disgust towards campaigns. Over time, it increased distrust towards politicians and decreased trust in democracy. The research was published in American Behavioral Scientist.
Dirty campaigning refers to unethical or unscrupulous tactics used in political campaigns to undermine opponents and gain an advantage. These tactics include spreading false information, launching personal attacks, or attempting to damage an opponent’s reputation through misleading or exaggerated accusations (often referred to as character assassination). Such tactics heavily rely on exploiting negative emotions like fear and anger.
The goal of dirty campaigning is to manipulate public perception and sway voters through deceit rather than focusing on policy or constructive debate. These tactics can lead to increased polarization, cynicism, and mistrust among the electorate. Ultimately, dirty campaigning undermines the democratic process by prioritizing deceit and manipulation over honest and fair political discourse. Over time, it can erode public trust in the democratic system.
Study authors Franz Reiter and Jörg Matthes sought to investigate the likely effects of dirty campaigning on the public. They hypothesized that perceived dirty campaigning would increase feelings of anger, frustration, and disgust toward political campaigns. These emotions, in turn, would lead to greater distrust of politicians and reduced trust in democracy.
To test their hypotheses, they analyzed data from a two-wave survey conducted before the 2020 Viennese state elections. The first survey wave was conducted about two months before the election, while the second took place in the days immediately preceding the vote. The researchers believed these elections were particularly suited for studying dirty campaigning, as multiple participating parties engaged in such tactics.
The survey data came from 524 participants who completed both waves. These individuals provided assessments of perceived dirty campaigning, emotional reactions toward campaigns, distrust of politicians, and trust in democracy, all of which were designed by the study authors. Participants also reported their age, gender, education level, political ideology, and political knowledge.
The results showed that higher perceived levels of dirty campaigning in the first wave were associated with greater feelings of anger, frustration, and disgust toward campaigns, as well as increased distrust of politicians. However, these perceptions were not directly associated with trust in democracy. On the other hand, higher levels of frustration at one time point were associated with lower trust in democracy, indicating that dirty campaigning might decrease trust in democracy by increasing voters’ frustration with political campaigns.
“We demonstrated that dirty campaigning has important negative consequences for democratically relevant outcomes, albeit via different routes. These findings suggest that “going dirty” in a political campaign may backfire. Dirty campaigning can evoke negative emotional reactions toward campaigns and diminish trust in politicians, which may not only affect the functioning of democracy as a whole but also how the performance of politicians is evaluated by citizens,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on voters’ experiences of dirty campaigning, though it is important to note that the research focused on a specific state-level election. The results may differ in elections of different levels (e.g., national elections) or in different countries.
Additionally, the study measured voters’ perceptions of dirty campaigning rather than assessing the actual behavior of political campaigners. This leaves room for the results to reflect individual differences in voter attitudes rather than the true conduct of campaigners. Furthermore, the study’s design does not allow for definitive cause-and-effect conclusions to be drawn from the findings.
The paper, “On the Immoral Campaign Trail: Conceptualization, Underlying Affective Processes, and Democratic Outcomes of Perceived Dirty Campaigning,” was authored by Franz Reiter and Jörg Matthes.