The main bulk of studies examining the strategic aspects of negative campaigning focus on the question under which circumstances parties resort to attacking their opponent, nevertheless the choice of target is an equally important decision. However, only several single country studies have explored the question which political parties are the most likely targets (see Haynes and Rhine 1998; Ridout and Holland 2010; Sigelman and Shiraev 2002; Skaperdas and Grofman 1995; Elmelund-Praestaeker 2009; Doron and On 1983; Walter 2012). This is likely the result of the pre-dominantly U.S. literature, where the choice of target only comes into play in three candidate races or primary election campaigns. Nevertheless, in the West-European context where multiparty systems are most common this is a more prominent decision that parties have to make. In this paper we take the first steps to examine the choice of target comparatively by studying attack behavior in party election broadcasts in British, German and Dutch election campaigns in the period 1981-2012.
