Negative campaigning creates voter apathy and prevents accurate reporting of candidates’ policies and ideologies.

The contemporary political environment throughout much of the democratic world- and especially the USA- is mired in negative and aggressive campaigning. Tactics of this type breed apathy and anomie among groups within society who have previously been politically engaged. Politicians are increasingly portrayed as uniformly corrupt, incompetent or both. Research published by Stamford University in the late nineties has linked an overall decline in voter turnout (approximately 10% between 1960 and 1992)[i] and a further decline in voter roll-off (the likelihood that an individual will vote for a high office, but neglect to vote for state or federal legislative positions) to increased reliance on attack ads and negative campaigning among American politicians. The authors of the Stamford report identify several causative factors underlying this connection. Firstly, the study acknowledges that adverts attacking an individual’s credentials, policies or background are likely to reduce the number of voters who back a particular candidate. However, campaigns of this type do nothing to increase support for alternative candidates. The supporters of a politician undermined by negative campaigning are unlikely to switch to his or her opponent, preferring instead to abstain from the vote. Although party- or candidate- loyalty can be quickly disrupted, it takes a considerable amount of time for a party or politician to gain a voter’s trust[ii]. As proposition will show, negative campaigning tends to engender further negative campaigning, leading to the main contenders in an election forgoing the use of positive campaign media. In short, aggressive campaigning is effective in reducing the popularity of opponents of a particular candidate, but this advantage comes at the expense of preventing that candidate from broadening his support-base or contributing meaningfully to democratic discourse. Secondly, building on the previous point, voters have become increasingly aware negative campaigns’ ability to sterilise political debate. Voter apathy rises in response to aggressive campaigning that highlights flaws in the policies of political opponents, but does nothing to explain the contributions that another candidate may make. Declining turnout figures are also a response to the knock-on effect that negative campaigning has on independent media[iii]. The press tends to use more airtime and page-space covering attack campaigns, due to their sensationalist and lurid nature. Especially in the US, newspapers and television stations function as commercial entities, and controversy and fear mongering will always draw in more readers or viewers than cool, balanced argumentation[iv]. This tendency, in turn, closes off an important forum for public debate on the merits of candidate’s policies and on issues that voters may want to see addressed. Reporting on the shock tactics and partisan comments of politicians sells newspapers, but reporting on the statistics, proposals, claims and counter-claims of formal political debate does more to convince voters that their political system is representative and responsive to their needs. Banning overtly negative campaigning will remove the perverse incentives that distort press coverage of the meaningful, practical details of election campaigns. Consequently, voters will be able to draw on a wider range of information when making their choice at the ballot box. A ban will prevent politicians from engaging in attrition based campaigns designed purely to breed apathy among their opponent’s supporters. Participants in the political process should be encouraged to test and investigate each other’s policies, premises and ideals. The evolutionary, dialectical pressures that debate of this type exerts will ultimately lead to more refined policy making. In attempting to do more and offer more to voters, politicians will be forced to survey and interact with a wider range of potential supporters than they normally would. [i] Winning, but losing. How negative campaigns shrink electorate, manipulate news media. Ansolabhere, S. Iyengar, S. Stamford University. http://pcl.stanford.edu/common/docs/research/iyengar/1996/goingneg.html [ii] Winning, but losing. How negative campaigns shrink electorate, manipulate news media. Ansolabhere, S. Iyengar, S. Stamford University. http://pcl.stanford.edu/common/docs/research/iyengar/1996/goingneg.html [iii] Winning, but losing. How negative campaigns shrink electorate, manipulate news media. Ansolabhere, S. Iyengar, S. Stamford University. http://pcl.stanford.edu/common/docs/research/iyengar/1996/goingneg.html [iv] Political attack ads can be effective but risky. Rotman Business School, 10 May 2004. https://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/news/detail.asp?ID=78