Negative campaigning has long been the subject of a recurrent debate in political science (Lau et al. 1999). This paper proposes to study this salient phenomenon by focusing on the political actors’ use of negative messages in the context of direct-democratic campaigns. To that end, four referendums and four initiatives held in Switzerland in the policy domains of immigration, health politics, welfare state issues, and economic liberalism between 2006 and 2008 are examined. Following the theoretical considerations made by Riker (1996), the magnitude of negative campaigning is hypothesized to depend on the actors’ positioning in these campaigns, thus highlighting the fundamental differences between ‘yes’ and ‘no campaign’ strategies. The supporters of any proposition face the burden of prove in policy contests. At least to a certain degree have the corresponding actors to highlight positive arguments, endorsements, and emotions. By contrast, the opponents generally do not have anything to defend positively. To obtain a defeat of the ballot proposition at stake, they should primarily rely on negative campaigning. This examination draws on about 250 interviews that were conducted with the campaign managers who acted on behalf of their respective organizations in order to grasp their plans for action. With respect to the strategic orientation, respondents were invited to indicate whether they intended to call attention to 1)the strength of their own arguments, 2)the weakness of their opponents’ arguments, 3) positive emotions, 4) negative emotions, 5)those organizations that are aligned on the same side, and 6) those organizations that are aligned on the opponent side.
Lau, Richard R., Lee SiegelmannCaroline HeldmannPaul Babit (1999). ‘The Effectiveness of Negative Political Advertising: A Meta-analytic Assessment’. American Political Science Review, 93(4), 851–75.
Riker (1996). The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution. New Heaven, CT: Yale University Press.
