To what extent do authoritarianism and violent political discourse influence voting intention and campaign engagement of right-wing candidates? A vignettes experiment

Abstract

The Brazilian elections of 2018, 2020, and 2022 were marked by aggressive and violent (mainly speech) acts coming from candidates and reproduced by voters. Such acts often had the object of attacking the opposing ideological field in the intention of getting votes and engagement. But, are such discursive strategies effective? In an attempt to answer this question, in this study we sought to analyze to what extent authoritarianism and violent political discourse influenced the voting intention and campaign engagement of right-wing discourse candidates. To this end, we conducted an experiment with vignettes among 273 subjects in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro State, which were divided into two groups randomized by propensity score matching: a control group whose text refers to a non-violent discourse; and a control group, whose text has a more violent tone. The results indicate that violent political discourse reduces voting intention, but when mediated by voting intention, violent political discourse generates greater engagement in the candidate's campaign. Finally, the results indicate that voters with a higher degree of authoritarianism tend to be more engaged and have higher voting intention, just as voters with a higher interest in politics tend to be more engaged.

Keywords

• marketing político
• discurso político violento
• autoritarismo
• intenção de voto
• engajamento político