Published February 8, 2026 | Version v1
Journal article Open

Gender Polarization in Voting: The Role of Negative Campaigning

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Edmondo De Amicis, Rovigo, Italy

Description

Across the globe men tend to lean towards right-wing parties while women are more likely to vote left. In addition, there is a well-documented pattern which shows that negative campaigning tends to be more effective among male voters and that right-wing parties are more likely to employ negative campaign tactics. This leads to the question whether gender polarization in voting can be partially explained by men’s greater susceptibility to negative campaigning. To explore this, a large-scale expert survey (NEGex) was merged with a collection of post-election surveys (CSES Module 5) to extract a database of 45,000 respondents, covering 200 parties over 34 national elections.  The results confirm the hypothesis that the gender divide is partly due to men being more susceptible to negative campaigning, which right-wing parties commonly use more than their left-wing counterparts.

Files

J_ASAP_2026_Cappello.pdf

Files (2.0 MB)

Name Size Download all
md5:3aa9ffae22a367a4a7ed6c7d4ced63a0
2.0 MB Preview Download

Additional details

References

  • Abou-Chadi, T. (2024). A gendered far-right wave among young voters in Western Europe? European Journal of Politics and Gender, 20(20), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1332/25151088Y2024D000000065
  • Abramowitz, A. I., & Webster, S. W. (2018). Negative partisanship: Why Americans dislike parties but behave like rabid partisans. Political Psychology, 39(Suppl 1), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12479
  • Benoit, K., & Laver, M. (2007). Estimating party policy positions: Comparing expert surveys and hand-coded content analysis. Electoral Studies, 26(1), 90–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2006.04.008
  • Bertrand, M. (2011). New perspectives on gender. In O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (Eds.), Handbook of Labor Economics (Vol. 4, Part B, pp. 1543–1590). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-7218(11)02415-4
  • Brader, T. (2005). Striking a responsive chord: How political ads motivate and persuade voters by appealing to emotions. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 388-405. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00130.x
  • Brown, A. R. (2011). Wikipedia as a data source for political scientists: Accuracy and completeness of coverage. Political Science and Politics, 44(2), 339–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096511000199
  • Crespo-Martínez, I., Garrido-Rubia, A., & Rojo-Martínez, J. M. (2022). El uso de las emociones en la comunicación político-electoral. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, 58, 175- 201. https://doi.org/10.21308/recp.58.06
  • Croson, R., & Gneezy, U. (2009). Gender differences in preferences. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(2), 448–474. https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.47.2.448
  • Desposato, S. (2011). The impact of campaign messages in new democracies: Results from an experiment in Brazil. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4951393
  • Duckitt, J. (2006). Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32(5), 684–696. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205284282
  • Emanuele, V., & Marino, B. (2024). Party system ideological polarization in Western Europe: data, trends, drivers, and links with other key party system properties (1945–2021). Political Research Exchange, 6, 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2024.2399095
  • Franz, M. M., Freedman, P. B., Goldstein, K. M., & Ridout, T. N. (2007). Campaign advertising and American democracy. Temple University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14btc00
  • Fridkin, K. L., & Kenney, P. J. (2011). Variability in citizens' reactions to different types of negative campaigns. American Journal of Political Science, 55(2), 307-325. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00494.x
  • Galasso, V., & Nannicini, T. (2024). Persuasion and gender: Experimental evidence from two political campaigns. Public Choice, 203, 183-204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127- 024-01192-y
  • Geer, J. G. (2006). In defense of negativity. Attack ads in presidential campaigns. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/ 10.7208/chicago/9780226285009.001.0001
  • Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674037618
  • Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J. R. (2014). Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 37(3), 297-307. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X13001192
  • Hudde, A. (2023). Seven decades of gender differences in German voting behavior. KZfSS Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 75, 143–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-023-00904-4
  • Ivins, M. (1998). You got to dance with them what brung you. Random House
  • Kahn, K. F., & Kenney, P. J. (1999). Do negative campaigns mobilize or suppress turnout? Clarifying the relationship between negativity and participation. American Political Science Review, 93(4), 877-889. https://doi.org/10.2307/2586118
  • Kaufmann, K. M., & Petrocik, J. R. (1999). The changing politics of American men: Understanding the sources of the gender gap. American Journal of Political Science, 43(3), 864–887. https://doi.org/10.2307/2991838
  • Külz, J., Spitz, A., Abu-Akel, A., Günnemann, S., & West, R. (2023). United States politicians' tone became more negative with 2016 primary campaigns. Scientific Reports, 13, 10495. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36839-1
  • Lau, R. R., & Pomper, G. M. (2001). Negative campaigning by US Senate candidates. Party Politics, 7(1), 69-87. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068801007001004
  • Lau, R. R., Sigelman, L., & Rovner, I. B. (2007). The effects of negative political campaigns: A meta-analytic reassessment. The Journal of Politics, 69(4), 1176–1209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2007.00618.x
  • Maier, J., Nai, A., & Verhaar, N. (2024). More negative when it matters less? Comparing party campaign behaviour in European and national elections. Journal of European Public Policy, Advance online publication, 2307-2329. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2024.2404154
  • Milačić, F. (2021). The negative impact of polarization on democracy. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Democracy of the Future. https://collections.fes.de/publikationen/ident/fes/18175
  • Nai, A. (2018). Going negative, worldwide: Towards a general understanding of determinants and targets of negative campaigning. Government and Opposition, 55(3), 430–455. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2018.32
  • Niederle, M., & Vesterlund, L. (2011). Gender and competition. Annual Review of Economics, 3, 601–630. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-111809-125122
  • Petkevic, V., & Nai, A. (2021). Political attacks in 280 characters or less: A new tool for the automated classification of campaign negativity on social media. American Politics Research, 50(3), 279-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211055676
  • Polk, J., Rovny, J., Bakker, R., Edwards, E., Hooghe, L., Jolly, S., Koedam, J., Kostelka, F., Marks, G., Schumacher, G., Steenbergen, M., Vachudova, M., & Zilovic, M. (2017). Explaining the salience of anti-elitism and reducing political corruption for political parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey data. Research and Politics, 4(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168016686915
  • Ridout, T., Fowler, E. F., & Franz, M. (2025). Understanding the message(s): Spending and content of political advertising on television in 2024. The Forum, 22(1), 251-282. https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2025-2002
  • Valli, C., & Nai, A. (2020). Attack politics from Albania to Zimbabwe: A large-scale comparative study on the drivers of negative campaigning. International Political Science Review, 43(5), 680-696. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512120946410
  • Walter, A. S., & Van der Eijk, C. (2019). Unintended consequences of negative campaigning: Backlash and second-preference boost effects in a multi-party context. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 21(3), 612-629. https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119842038
  • Yerushalmy, J. (2024, November 14). What's behind the global political divide between young men and women. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2024/nov/14/us-election-donald-trump-voters-gender-race-data
  • Zaller, J. R. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511818691