A campaign's message matters — but so does its mood. And the choice to sound hopeful or angry turns out to be a calculated one.
Most studies of campaigns focus on what parties say — the issues and positions. This paper looks at the emotional tone, the sentiment, of political speech, and argues it is a strategic instrument that parties tune to their situation rather than a fixed personality trait.
The logic is positional. Parties in opposition or in weaker electoral positions have reason to make voters dissatisfied, so they reach for more negative sentiment. Governing parties and those in stronger positions want to defend the status quo, so they lean more positive.
Using automated text analysis of party manifestos and campaign communications across 21 democratic countries, the study finds strong support: the emotional content of campaign messaging varies systematically with parties' strategic incentives, just as the theory predicts.
If sentiment is strategic, then a campaign's emotional register is itself information — a signal of where a party thinks it stands. The next time a campaign turns dark, it may be telling you less about the world than about its own position in the race.
Crabtree, Charles, Matt Golder, Thomas Gschwend, and Indriði H. Indriðason. “It's Not Only What You Say, It's Also How You Say It: The Strategic Use of Campaign Sentiment.” Journal of Politics 82(3): 1044–1060, 2020.
read the paper →automated text analysis of manifestos and campaign communications across 21 democracies · the bars mark the documented direction of tone; effect sizes live in the paper