Determinants of Twitter Interactions between Candidates in Multilevel Electoral Campaigns

Parties and their candidates increasingly evolve in multi-layered contexts where supra-national and sub-national levels play a big role in the political competition. A growing literature focuses on the behaviour of parties and candidates in this new institutional context (Deschouwer 2003; Fabre 2008, 2011). Yet, these studies mainly consider how it impacts intra-party processes during elections (e.g. candidate selection), affects individual career patterns within parties (Stolz 2001; Dodeigne 2012), or influences voting behaviour (Thorlakson, Hough & Jeffery 2006). We take the first step to exploring how parties and candidates interact during electoral campaigns in multi-layered contexts. We investigate whether these interactions are structured horizontally, reflecting a certain degree of autonomy between layers (stratarchy – see Carty 2004; Bolleyer 2012), or if they follow vertical structures across layers, based on a hierarchical partisan logic or other cleavage dimensions (left-right, centre-periphery, etc.). The case of the May 2014 Belgian elections - where parties and candidates competed at the regional, federal, and European levels simultaneously - offers a unique opportunity to investigate campaign behaviours in a multi-layered context. We explore interactions between candidates – running for office at the national European and regional level -on Twitter in the run up to the vote. We define interactions based on the flow of retweets and conversations (@) initiated by candidates. In so doing we capture dynamic interactions or networks, as opposed to a more static definition based on followers. Moreover the Belgian case enables us to explore whether Twitter based networks go beyond the language divide (French/Flemish). Interactions are analysed using Social Network Analysis and tools like PNet (Wang, Robins and Pattison, 2009). Ultimately, we seek to unveil and disentangle whether patterns of vertical or horizontal structure prevail.