发现西方政客言论越来越毒，尤其反对党和右翼政党更甚。
Elite Political Discourse has Become More Toxic in Western Countries
- 分析17国议员5年近1800万条推文，追踪政治话语毒性变化。
- 反对党与极右政党发言更毒，疫情初期和选举期反而变温和。
- 文化议题如移民、性别议题比经济福利话题更易引发攻击性言论。
政治不文明被视为对民主价值与治理的日益增长的威胁，但对其驱动因素与演变过程的理解仍有限。本文利用涵盖17个国家、长达五年的近1800万条议员推文的新数据集，系统研究国际政治是否日趋不文明，以及其决定因素。分析显示，政治精英间的有毒言论显著上升，且与极右翼政党及在野党相关。新冠疫情早期阶段和选举期间，言论毒性明显下降，出乎意料。此外，涉及“文化战争”议题（如移民、LGBTQ+权利）的讨论比聚焦福利或经济问题的讨论更具攻击性。这些发现凸显了全球民主体制中建设性对话正在退化。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Toxic and uncivil politics is widely seen as a growing threat to democratic values and governance, yet our understanding of the drivers and evolution of political incivility remains limited. Leveraging a novel dataset of nearly 18 million Twitter messages from parliamentarians in 17 countries over five years, this paper systematically investigates whether politics internationally is becoming more uncivil, and what are the determinants of political incivility. Our analysis reveals a marked increase in toxic discourse among political elites, and that it is associated to radical-right parties and parties in opposition. Toxicity diminished markedly during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and, surprisingly, during election campaigns. Furthermore, our results indicate that posts relating to ``culture war'' topics, such as migration and LGBTQ+ rights, are substantially more toxic than debates focused on welfare or economic issues. These findings underscore a troubling shift in international democracies toward an erosion of constructive democratic dialogue.
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