Negative Campaigning in Turkish Elections

Abstract

The academic literature on negative campaigning is growing. As an attempt to contribute to the theoretical and empirical knowledge on the phenomena, this study focuses on the Turkish elections and tries to provide answers to the following research questions: What is the level of negativity in Turkish electoral campaigns and which factors are salient for going negative for Turkish political parties? Findings display the fact that negativity is noticeably high in Turkey, and incumbency, ideology and time focus of messages are salient factors for negativity.