Caught in the Crossfire. A Comparative Investigation into Televised Incivility and Deliberative Quality of the Election Debates in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium

Concerns have been raised repeatedly about the quality of election debates. As a result of increased media logic, expressing controversial one-liners and waging uncivil attacks on one's opponents is a successful strategy to gain media coverage. As a result, the quality of political debates in the media is argued to be in decline leading to a drop in political trust (Shea & Fiorina 2013). Yet empirical evidence on the quality of election debate is scarce and focuses on single case studies. This study fills this void by investigating the quality of election debates in 4 European countries (2010 UK, 2009 Germany, 2010 the Netherlands, 2010 Belgium) using the Discursive Quality Index. This index meticulously follows the criteria of the ideal-speech situation developed in deliberative democracy theory (e.g. amount of respect, justification) and has repeatedly proven to be a reliable measurement instrument (Habermas 1981; Steenbergen, et al 2003). Preliminary analyses suggest substantial variation in the quality of election debates as a result of the different media and political systems.