What are the predictors of political incivility perceptions?

Abstract

Incivility in public discourse has become a central concern. This research develops an approach based on citizens’ perceptions of incivility to assess predictors of such perceptions. Starting from a definition of the concept in a multidimensional sense, we identified different types of incivility that can be easily translated into operational terms (using vulgar/insulting language, referring to another politician with racist/sexist/religious epithets, lying/inventing facts to attack political opponents, and resorting to violence against political opponents). Through a survey of a representative sample of the Italian population, we found that citizens’ perception of incivility is not uniform but varies depending on the context and individual characteristics (socio-demographic variables, news consumption and relationship with politics). Overall, the importance of disentangling the concept into different types has emerged, because continuing to speak of ‘incivility’ in a broad sense does not help to clarify the phenomenon nor to identify the consequences for citizens’ relationship with politics.