Elite Political Discourse has Become More Toxic in Western Countries
This addresses the problem of eroding democratic dialogue for policymakers and citizens, highlighting a troubling shift in international politics, though it is incremental in building on existing research on political incivility.
The paper investigates the rise of toxic discourse among political elites in Western democracies using 18 million tweets from parliamentarians in 17 countries over five years, finding a marked increase in toxicity linked to radical-right parties, opposition parties, and culture war topics like migration and LGBTQ+ rights, with toxicity decreasing during COVID-19 and election campaigns.
Toxic and uncivil politics is widely seen as a growing threat to democratic values and governance, yet our understanding of the drivers and evolution of political incivility remains limited. Leveraging a novel dataset of nearly 18 million Twitter messages from parliamentarians in 17 countries over five years, this paper systematically investigates whether politics internationally is becoming more uncivil, and what are the determinants of political incivility. Our analysis reveals a marked increase in toxic discourse among political elites, and that it is associated to radical-right parties and parties in opposition. Toxicity diminished markedly during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and, surprisingly, during election campaigns. Furthermore, our results indicate that posts relating to ``culture war'' topics, such as migration and LGBTQ+ rights, are substantially more toxic than debates focused on welfare or economic issues. These findings underscore a troubling shift in international democracies toward an erosion of constructive democratic dialogue.