Political Incivility in Parliament, Party Competition and Political Communication

Recent years witnessed a growing concern about incivil politics in the parliamentary, electoral and media arenas. Ad hominem argumentation, rudeness, hostility and emotionality seem to characterize interactions among politicians and exchanges between politicians, journalists and citizens. Political incivility includes a wide range of verbal behaviour, such as name-calling, mockery, vilification, innuendo, insulting and accusing the opponent, but also nonverbal behaviour, such as refusing to shake hands, gesturing, and refusing to interact. Political incivility violates social norms of politeness and tolerance towards political opponents. Although it may be seen as inherent to the political process, current communication technologies make incivility immediately visible to society as a whole. The practice of incivility is regarded as worrisome by those who consider civil debate a requirement for a well-functioning deliberative democracy. Political incivility increases citizens’ levels of political cynicism, decreases citizens’ levels of political participation, delegitimizes politicians and the political process in the eyes of citizens and weakens their willingness to accept policies that they do not support. At the elite level, political incivility is argued to lead to increased party polarization and less effective government. Although the topic of political incivility has begun to capture scholarly attention, the various studies on forms of incivility in politics remain fragmented in conceptual and analytical approach, and across (sub)disciplines, such as parliamentary studies, (political) psychology, (political) communication, (political) discourse analysis and political theory. We expect that these different forms of incivility are not separate and independent phenomena, but interrelated, possibly even different manifestations of a similar phenomenon. We wish to explore the interconnections and latent similarities. This workshop aims to bring together a group of international scholars from various (sub)disciplines to stimulate the study of political incivility in all its facets and in particular in a non-U.S. context.