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A Functional Analysis of UK Debates inNorthern Ireland, Scotland, and WalesWilliam L. Benoit a & Jennifer M. Benoit-Bryan ba School of Communication Studies , Ohio Universityb Department of Public Administration , University of Illinois ,ChicagoPublished online: 20 Feb 2014.

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A Functional Analysis of UK Debatesin Northern Ireland, Scotland, andWalesWilliam L. Benoit & Jennifer M. Benoit-Bryan

In 2010, the UK held its first ever televised debates for Prime Minister, featuring Gordon

Brown, David Cameron, and Nick Clegg. At the same time debates were held in Northern

Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. These ‘‘regional’’ UK debates were a mixed bag. The debate

in Northern Ireland included candidates for members of the Northern Ireland parliament;

the debate in Scotland featured candidates running for the UK parliament, and the Wales

debate included both kinds of candidates. The debates featured a mixture of issues,

touching on ‘‘regional’’ and UK questions and candidates. Previous research has studied

the three UK debates (Benoit & Benoit-Bryan, 2013); this study applies Functional

Theory to three debates, one from Northern Ireland, Scotland, andWales. Overall in these

three debates acclaims were more common than attacks and defenses were the least

common function. Incumbent party candidates acclaimed and defended more, and

attacked less, than challengers. This relationship was particularly strong when these

politicians discussed their records in office (past deeds). The candidates in these debates

discussed policy more than character. The participants acclaimed more and attacked less

when discussing general goals and ideals.

Keywords: Election Debates; Functional Theory; Functions; Northern Ireland; Scotland;

Topics; Wales

In 2010, the UK saw its first ever Prime Minister debates, with Prime Minister

Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative), and Nick Clegg (Liberal-

Democrat). Research using Functional Theory (Benoit, 2007) content analyzed these

William L. Benoit (PhD, Wayne State University) is a Professor of Communication Studies at Ohio University.

Jennifer M. Benoit-Bryan (MA, University of Missouri, Columbia) is a doctoral student in the Department

of Public Administration, University of Illinois, Chicago. Correspondence to: William L. Benoit, School of

Communication Studies, Ohio University, Athens OH 45701, USA. E-mail: benoitw@ohio.edu

Western Journal of Communication

Vol. 78, No. 5, October–December 2014, pp. 653–667

ISSN 1057-0314 (print)/ISSN 1745-1027 (online) # 2014 Western States Communication Association

DOI: 10.1080/10570314.2013.868032

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debates (Benoit & Benoit-Bryan, 2013). The candidates for prime minister acclaimed

more than they attacked; the least common function was defenses. Furthermore,

the incumbent acclaimed even more, and attacked less, than the challengers. These

candidates discussed policy more than character in their debates.

A number of democratic countries have utilized this message form to educate

voters, including Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Iran,

Israel, Mauritania, New Zealand, Scotland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Poland,

Taiwan, the Ukraine, and the United States (see Coleman, 2000). When the UK

adopted televised debates, it not only staged three debates between the candidates

for Prime Minister but also held debates in the three countries that were part of

the UK: Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This study reports an analysis of three

other UK debates from 2010: one each from Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Debates are a very important campaign medium because they possess several

important advantages over other message forms. First, debates present information

to voters: Televised debates are much longer than other common message forms,

such as TV spots—and some countries, such as the UK, restrict television advertising.

Candidates are prohibited from running television spots; ‘‘major parties are allocated

rationed blocks of free time for . . . party election broadcasts (PEBs) during official

campaign periods’’ (Scammell & Langer, 2006, p. 65). Furthermore, ‘‘the maximum

length of [PEBs] has declined progressively, from 30 minutes in 1955 to four minutes

40 seconds’’ (pp. 75–76), meaning that debates afford candidates an important

opportunity to communicate themselves and their policies to voters as well as to

distinguish themselves from their opponents. Second, the format of debates, with

voters hearing alternatively from the leading candidates, allows voters to compare

and contrast the candidates’ character and issue positions directly. Third, the rules

usually prohibit bringing notes to the debates and so candidates present information

extemporaneously, and at times, must provide impromptu answers to unexpected

questions or comments from opponents.

Of course, candidates can prepare extensively for their debate appearances;

nevertheless, it is possible that debate viewers will obtain a more candid view of each

candidate than is possible with highly scripted message forms such as stump speeches

or TV spots (Schrott, 1990). Debates also generate both media attention and political

discussion among many voters concerning the candidates and their policies, which

broadens their potential influence. Candidates benefit from the free media exposure

provided by televised debates.

Televised election debates can affect their audiences. Benoit, Hansen, and Verser

(2003) used meta-analysis to demonstrate that watching American presidential

debates increased issue knowledge, influenced perceptions of the candidates’ charac-

ter, and changed vote choice (of course, not every viewer’s knowledge is increased or

attitudes changed, but the observed effects are significant). Evidence from other

countries also shows effects from viewing debates. Lanoue (1991) reported that the

1984 Canadian leadership debates had effects on the voting behavior of viewers. Blais

and Boyer (1996), who studied the Canadian debates of 1988, found that they altered

vote choice and voters’ perceptions. Maier and Faas (2003) reported evidence that the

654 W. L. Benoit and J. M. Benoit-Bryan

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2002 German debates had effects on candidates’ images. Blais, Gidengil, Nadeau,

and Nevitte (2003) concluded that the 2003 Canadian debates were ‘‘critical in the

Conservative surge’’ (p. 49). Blais and Perrella (2008) reported effects from Canadian

and American debates. Viewers of the 2010 UK debates (involving Brown, Cameron,

and Clegg) reported that they learned about the policies of the parties and the charac-

ter of the party leaders (Blumler, 2011). Research established various effects from

watching televised political leaders’ debates.

Debates can also increase political efficacy and promote civic engagement (Chaffee,

1978). Because political election debates tend to attract large audiences—e.g., half of

eligible Canadian voters watched the 1979 debate (LeDuc & Price, 1985), 59% watched

the Israeli debate in 1996 (Blum-Kulka & Liebes, 2000), and 65% watched one of the

German chancellor debates in 2002 (Faas & Maier, 2004)—they have a tremendous

potential to inform and influence voters.

Political leaders’ debates in countries other than the U.S. are a comparatively

understudied phenomenon (e.g., books on American presidential campaign debates

include Benoit et al., 2002; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Hellweg, Pfau, & Brydon, 1992;

Jamieson & Birdsell, 1988; Kraus, 1962, 1979; see Louden, 2011). McKinney and

Carlin (2004) have argued that more research in this area is necessary. This section

reviews research on political leaders’ debates.

Galasinski (1998) investigated rule breaking in the 1995 Polish debates. Coleman’s

(2000) volume compiled essays about international debate; these tend to be historical

or conceptual pieces. Gomard and Krogstad (2001) edited a book on discourse and

gender in debates held in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Matsaganis and

Weingarten (2001) looked at a 2000 Greek prime minister debate, examining issues,

strategy, and style. Khang (2008) applied Kaid and Johnston’s (2001) video-style to

South Korean and U.S. debates. Baker and Norpoth (1981) concluded that the

1972 West German debates focused more on issues than ethics (character). They

noted that the candidates supporting the government tended to defend their record

while opposition party candidates were prone to attack the government’s record.

Coleman (2011) included analyses of media coverage of, and blogs about, the 2010

UK debates (as well as the survey of viewers mentioned earlier).

Benoit’s (2007) Functional Theory, which argues that candidates for elective office

use three functions (acclaims or positive statements, attacks or criticisms of oppo-

nents, and defenses or refutations of attacks) on two topics (policy or issues, character

or personality) to court voters, has been applied to every American general election

presidential debate (Benoit, Blaney, & Pier, 1998; Benoit & Brazeal, 2002; Benoit &

Harthcock, 1999; Benoit, McHale, Hansen, Pier, & McGuire, 2003; Benoit & Rill, in

press; Benoit, Stein, et al., 2007; Benoit & Wells, 1996; Wells, 1999) and to many

American presidential primary debates from 1948 to 2000 (Benoit et al., 2002). This

research revealed that acclaims tend to be more common than attacks, which are in

turn more frequent than defenses. Further, incumbents are prone to acclaim more

and attack less than challengers—and particularly so when the candidates discuss past

deeds or record in office (which enable retrospective voting—see Benoit, 2006). Presi-

dential candidates in United States debates focus more on policy (problems amenable

Western Journal of Communication 655

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to governmental action and proposals for governmental action) than character

(personality and traits of candidates; Benoit, 2007).

Recently this theory has also been extended to political leaders’ debates in other

countries: Australia and Canada (Benoit & Henson, 2007), France and South Korea

(Choi & Benoit, 2009), Israel (Benoit & Sheafer, 2006), Taiwan (Benoit, Wen, &

Yu, 2007), the UK (Benoit & Benoit-Bryan, 2013) and the Ukraine (Benoit &

Klyukovski, 2006).

Results of these studies are generally consistent with analyses of American political

debates. Generally, acclaims outnumbered attacks, which in turn were more common

than defenses in most of these debates. The Ukraine debates had more attacks than

acclaims (this campaign was particularly vitriolic: the initial votes were declared

invalid due to voter fraud and one candidate accused the other of poisoning him).

Incumbents acclaimed more and attacked less than challengers in these countries

(except South Korea, which limits presidents to a single term and does not have a

vice president, so there is no true incumbent).

Isotalus (2011) looked at a Finnish election debate held in 2006. Policy was more

common than character and the challenger attacked more than the incumbent. How-

ever, defenses were the most common function, followed by attacks and then acclaims.

Isotalus argued that the moderators attacked the candidates, forcing them to defend

against both moderators and the opponent. He also suggested that the culture in

Finland may lead candidates to use fewer attacks and acclaims. Benoit and Benoit-

Bryan (2013) analyzed the three UK debates featuring Brown, Cameron, and Clegg.

Acclaims were more common than attacks (particularly for the incumbent). The

two leading candidates (Brown and Cameron) attacked each other more than they

attacked Clegg. When discussing record in office, the incumbent acclaimed more

and attacked less than the two challengers. Policy was discussed more than character.

General goals and ideals were used more by these candidates to acclaim than attack.

So, some characteristics of political leaders’ debates cross borders.

Background

The UK includes four countries (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales).

However, the UK government has ‘‘devolved’’ some authority to Northern Ireland,

Scotland, and Wales. Accordingly, the UK has four distinct parliaments: the UK par-

liament which meets in Westminster, the Northern Ireland Assembly which meets in

Belfast, the Scottish Parliament which meets in Edinburgh, and the National Assembly

for Wales which meets in Cardiff. Voters who reside in England elect one MP for the

UK parliament; voters in each constituency in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales

elect twoMPs: one for the UK parliament and for the parliament in their own country.

‘‘Prime Minister’’ is the title of the head of the UK parliament; the leaders of parlia-

ment in Scotland and in Wales are called the ‘‘First Minister’’ and Northern Ireland

has two coleaders, ‘‘First Minister’’ and ‘‘Deputy First Minister.’’

The participants in these debates were diverse. The debate in Scotland featured

four candidates for the UK parliament (Westminster), the Northern Ireland debate

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featured four candidates running for the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the debate

in Wales included two candidates for the UK Parliament and two for the National

Assembly for Wales. These debates discussed both ‘‘local’’ issues and candidates

and UK issues and candidates; in Northern Ireland neither the Labour nor the Liberal

Democrat Party fielded candidates for that country’s parliament and the Conserva-

tive Party held no seats in Northern Ireland in 2010. Two debates were held in

Northern Ireland and three in Scotland and Wales. These debates are unlike other

debates that have been investigated thus far because the candidates stood for offices

in a variety of different governments (UK, Northern Ireland, and Wales; none of

these debates included Brown, Cameron, or Clegg). Political party is very important

in parliamentary forms of government; citizens only vote for members of parliament

and have no opportunity to vote directly for the prime minister. No exact parallel

exists in the U.S., or perhaps even in other countries. A very rough metaphor would

be a Republican senate candidate debating a Democratic gubernatorial candidate

and a Reform Party House candidate. We obtained transcripts of one debate from

Northern Ireland (April 22, 2010), Scotland (April 25, 2010), and Wales (April 18,

2010) from the Internet (Sky News, 2010a, 2010b; UTV, 2010). Questions asked in

the debates were obtained from viewers of SkyNews and visitors to its webpage except

in the Northern Ireland debate, with most questions from the moderator and a few

from the audience attending the event.

Theory and Method

The Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (Benoit, 2007) posited that

candidates seek to appear preferable to other candidates to win elections. Three types

(functions) of messages can foster the impression that a candidate is preferable to

opponents: acclaims, attacks, and defenses. An acclaim is a positive statement about

the qualities, accomplishments, or desirable proposals of a candidate. For example,

in the Scottish debate Jim Murphy stated that ‘‘the Labour party has always been a

party that believes in full employment and the right to work.’’ An attack identifies a

drawback of an opponent (or an opponent’s political party). Alex Salmond provided

an example of an attack when he said, ‘‘What happens often when people move in to

work, they actually end up worse off because of things like housing benefit and council

tax benefit get withdrawn.’’ A defense is a statement that attempts to refute an attack

leveled against the candidate. After Murphy attacked the Conservative Party (‘‘David,

your plans are to get rid of child trust funds for people on modest incomes’’), David

Mundell succinctly responded to this accusation by saying, ‘‘No.’’

These functions combine in an informal aspect of cost–benefit analysis; note that

we do not claim voters assign numerical values to acclaims, attacks, or defenses, or that

they combine these functions mathematically: acclaims tend to increase a candidate’s

apparent benefits, attacks tend to reduce an opponent’s perceived benefits, and

defenses can reduce a candidate’s alleged costs. Nor will every voter interpret a state-

ment in the same way (e.g., calling a candidate ‘‘conservative’’ would be considered a

desirable attribute by some and undesirable by others). Reinemann and Maurer

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(2005) found that use of acclaims in German political leaders debates generated

general support in the audience whereas attacks, statements of fact, and political plans

tended to polarize the audience.

Functional Theory posits that candidates in political campaigns can discuss two

topics as they attempt to persuade voters of their preferability to other candidates:

policy and character. Basically, policy reflects what we do and character is who we

are. Policy utterances, which are often called ‘‘issues,’’ concern problems and propo-

sals for alleviating those problems; character comments address the qualifications and

personalities of the candidates. In the Welsh debate, Peter Hain explained that the

Labour Party was committed to ‘‘investing in the new skills, the new jobs of the

future.’’ This quotation illustrates a comment on policy. Kirsty Williams provided

an example of a character utterance when she criticized the Labour and Conservative

Parties, saying that ‘‘Neither of these parties are being straight with the public.’’

Research found that American presidential candidates who discussed policy more,

and character less, than their opponents were significantly more likely to win elections

(Benoit, 2003).

Each of these topics is further divided into three components. When addressing

policy, political candidates can acclaim or attack in three areas: past deeds, future

plans, or general goals. Past deeds refer to the governmental actions taken by the

candidate or on behalf of the candidate or the record in office (thus facilitating

retrospective voting; see Benoit, 2006). Future plans are policies that the candidate

will pursue if elected or reelected: specific campaign promises. Future plans propose

the means to accomplish an end. General goals are less specific than future plans

and do not contain information about the candidates’ specific proposals, stressing

ends rather than means (Future Plans and General Goals both relate to prospective

voting).

Character, frequently referred to as ‘‘image,’’ includes three categories: personal

qualities, leadership ability, and ideals. Personal qualities are characteristics of

candidates such as honesty, courage, and decency. Leadership ability refers to the

candidates’ abilities to administer the government. Often statements concerning

leadership relate to the candidates’ experience in elective office. Those who have

not served in such offices sometimes use other managerial experiences (e.g., success

in business) to acclaim leadership ability. Ideals represent the candidates’ basic

principles or values.

Based on Functional Theory and research on political leaders’ debates in other

countries (Benoit, 2007), we tested six hypotheses and answered three research ques-

tions. Initially, Functional Theory explains that acclaims have no drawbacks, whereas

attacks have a single drawback: Voters say they dislike mudslinging, which could

result in a backlash against candidates who attack in a debate (Merritt, 1984; Stewart,

1975). Defenses, in contrast, have three potential limitations. The candidate must

identify an attack to refute it, which could inform or remind some voters of a poten-

tial liability of the defending candidate. Second, attacks usually occur on a candidate’s

weak points, which means a defense usually takes a candidate ‘‘off message.’’ Finally,

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the defensive posture is reactive rather than proactive, which could be perceived

unfavorably by voters. Accordingly, Functional Theory predicts that:

H1: Candidates use acclaims more frequently than attacks; defenses occur least often.

It seems likely that the candidates employed attacks strategically, rather than

simply attacking whenever they disagreed with another candidate. Benoit and Wells

(1996), for example, found that neither President George H. W. Bush nor Governor

Bill Clinton directed many attacks at Ross Perot; presumably, they hoped to win over

some of Perot’s supporters and so eschewed frequent (or harsh) attacks against Perot.

We posed this research question:

RQ1. Were the attacks distributed equally among the three candidates?

Although some people believe that candidates are role models (foregrounding

character), political leaders formulate and implement policy. Prime ministers have

important policy responsibilities, so Functional Theory would predict that

H2: Candidates discuss policy more often than character.

Incumbent candidates running for reelection have an important resource that is

rarely available for challengers: a record of service in the office sought. Challengers often

have service in other governmental offices, but it is not the same as experience as presi-

dent or primeminister. For example, in the United States in 2004, John Kerry had served

as a senator. However, senators do not implement the bills they introduce and pass; the

Senate ratifies treaties and confirms appointments of ambassadors, but senators do not

have the same kinds of foreign policy experience that incumbent presidents have. Simi-

larly, challengers may have experience as state governors, as was the case with Bill

Clinton in 1992, but again that is not quite the same as experience as a country’s leader.

Functional Theory argues that incumbents and challengers both engage in acclaims and

attacks—but that incumbents are more likely to acclaim, and less likely to attack, than

challengers. This relationship is particularly important when they discuss their records

in office: Incumbents are more likely to acclaim their own record, whereas challengers

are prone to attack the incumbent’s record. Hence, we offered two predictions:

H3: Incumbent candidates use acclaims more, and attacks less, than challengers.H4: Incumbent candidates use past deeds more for acclaims, and less for attacks,

than challengers.

The second and third research questions concerned the distribution of forms of

policy and of character.

RQ2. What is the distribution of the three forms of policy?RQ3. What is the distribution of the three forms of character?

The final two predictions concerned a form of policy (general goals) and of

character (ideals). Candidates generally find it easier to acclaim than to attack using

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these utterances. Who opposes strengthening national defense (a general goal) or

equality (an ideal)?

H5: Candidates use general goals more frequently to acclaim than to attack.H6: Candidates use ideals used more frequently to acclaim than to attack.

The data on these hypotheses from analysis of these debates should enhance our

understanding of the nature of televised campaign debates. These debates were

unusual in the mixture of candidates (some running for office in the UK, some

running for office in the other countries).

This study content-analyzed three election debates of 2010 held in Northern

Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. To ensure comparability of data in this replication,

we followed the same procedures developed for conducting Functional analysis of

other political leaders’ debates (see, e.g., Benoit, 2007; Benoit & Benoit-Bryan,

2013; Benoit & Henson, 2007; Benoit & Klyukovski, 2006; Benoit & Sheafer, 2006;

Benoit, Wen, et al., 2007).

Functional Theory unitizes utterances into themes, which are complete ideas,

claims, or arguments; a single theme can vary in length from a phrase to an entire

paragraph. The coders first identified themes present in each of the debates. Then

each theme was categorized by function: acclaim, attack or defense. Next, coders

categorized the topic of each theme as policy or character. The coders identified

the form of policy or character for each theme. Finally, the target of each attack

was identified (some attacks did not have a clear target; some comments lamented

existing problems without explicitly assigning blame).

Two coders analyzed the debates. Intercoder reliability was calculated with

Cohen’s (1960) kappa. About 20% of the transcripts; including portions sections

from all three debates, were used to calculate intercoder reliability. Kappa was .97

for functions, .93 for topics, .89 for forms of policy, and .91 for forms of character.

Landis and Koch (1977) indicated that kappas of .81 or higher reflect almost perfect

agreement between coders, so these data have good reliability.

At the more general level (e.g., functions, topics) data will be reported in the

aggregate and for each country separately. Breaking the data down by country will

not be attempted for more specific analyses (e.g., forms or policy or of character)

with less data.

Results

The first hypothesis concerned the distribution of functions in these debates. Overall,

49% of the themes were acclaims, 41% were attacks, and 10% were defenses. In the

debate in Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson acclaimed his party: ‘‘We’ve made real

progress. And that progress has been due in no small part from the mandate given

to the DUP to negotiate on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.’’ This utterance

illustrates an acclaim on behalf of the DUP. In contrast, Gerry Adams illustrated an

attack when he said, ‘‘The SDLP... supported the war in Afghanistan.’’ Many voters

would consider supporting the war in Afghanistan as inappropriate, making this

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comment an attack. Margaret Ritchie responded to criticism from Adams, saying that

‘‘Gerry makes an assertion that we voted for war in Iraq, can I nail that lie, back in

March 2003, and our three MPs were the only Northern Ireland party to work against

the war in Iraq.’’ This utterance was designed to refute an attack against her party. A

chi-square goodness of fit test for each country showed that attacks were the most

common function in the debate held in Scotland (chi-square [df¼ 2]¼ 203.4,

p< .0001). See Table 1 for these data.

The first research question dealt with the distribution of attacks. No significant

difference in target of attack was found in the Northern Ireland debate (chi-square¼1.69 p> .6). However, in the debates which included Labour and Conservative

candidates, significant differences occurred with most attacks targeting the Labour

Party=Labour candidates followed by the Conservative Party=Conservative candi-

dates (Scotland: chi-square¼ 56.03 [df¼ 3], p< .0001; Wales: chi-square¼ 53.79

[df¼ 3], p< .0001). These data are displayed in Table 2.

Hypothesis 2 addressed the distribution of themes on policy and character. Over-

all, more themes concerned policy (77%) than character (23%). During the Northern

Ireland debate, Reg Empey lamented the fact that ‘‘Northern Ireland is accruing a

debt of 13.5 million pounds a day,’’ illustrating a comment on policy (the national

debt). In contrast, Gerry Adams addressed character when he declared that ‘‘a vote

for Sinn Fein is a vote for leadership.’’ Leadership is an example of a character topic.

This difference was significant (chi-square [df¼ 1]¼ 315.88, p< .0001). Examining

this difference by country revealed significant differences in Scotland and Wales

but not Northern Ireland. See Table 3 for these data.

Hypothesis 3 predicted that incumbent party candidates would acclaim more, and

attack less, than challengers. Incumbent party candidates acclaimed in 53% whereas

challengers acclaimed in 47% of utterances; challengers attacked in 45% of statements

compared with 31% attacks from incumbents. This prediction was confirmed in

these data (chi-square [df¼ 1]¼ 8.61, p< .005, u¼ .11; defenses excluded). These

data are reported in Table 1.

The fourth prediction anticipated that incumbents would acclaim more, and

attack less, than challengers when discussing record in office (past deeds). Incumbent

party candidates acclaimed in 67% of themes and attacked in 33% on record in office;

Table 1 Functions of UK 2010 Election Debates

Acclaims Attacks Defenses Chi-Square

Northern Ireland 84 (52%) 47 (29%) 31 (19%) 27.37, p< .0001

Scotland 123 (40%) 152 (49%) 36 (12%) 70.31, p< .0001

Wales 187 (56%) 129 (39%) 18 (5%) 132.47, p< .0001

Total 394 (49%) 328 (41%) 81 (20%) 203.4, p< .0001

Incumbents 129 (53%) 75 (31%) 37 (15%) 8.61, p< .005,

Challengers 265 (47%) 253 (45%) 48 (8%) u¼ .11

Note. df¼ 2 except incumbents versus challengers where df¼ 1.

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challengers acclaimed in 15% of statements and attacked in 85% of utterances on past

deeds. Statistical analysis confirmed that this was a significant difference (chi-square

[df¼ 1]¼ 51.42, p< .0001, u¼ .51).

The second RQ addressed distribution of policy utterances; 35% of policy themes

concerned past deeds; 33% addressed future plans, and 31% were about general goals.

Table 2 Source and Target of Attack in UK 2010 Election Debates

SourceTarget

Northern

Ireland

Robinson

DUP

Adams

Sinn Fein

Empey

Ulster Unionist

Ritchie

SDLP

Robinson — 0 4 0

Adams 1 — 2 8

Empey 2 4 — 0

Ritchie 1 4 0 —

Total 4 (15%) 8 (31%) 6 (23%) 8 (31%)

Scotland

Murphy

Labour

Mundell

Conservative

Carmichael

Liberal Dem.

Salmond

SNP

Murphy — 16 3 4

Mundell 15 — 2 9

Carmichael 20 8 — 3

Salmond 23 5 1 —

Total 58 (53%) 29 (27%) 6 (6%) 16 (15%)

Wales

Hain

Labour

Gillan

Conservative

Williams

Liberal Dem.

James

Plaid Cymru

Hain — 29 10 0

Gillan 23 — 3 0

Williams 18 10 — 3

James 10 6 4 —

Total 51 (44%) 45 (39%) 17 (15%) 3 (3%)

Note. chi-square (df¼ 3) for Scotland 56.03, p< .0001; for Wales 53.79, p< .0001; Northern Ireland ns.

Table 3 Topics of UK 2010 Election Debates

Policy Character Chi-Square

Northern Ireland 75 (57%) 56 (43%) 2.76, p> .10

Scotland 213 (81%) 49 (19%) 102.66, p< .0001

Wales 270 (85%) 46 (15%) 158.78, p< .0001

Total 846 (77%) 256 (23%) 315.88, p< .0001

Note. df¼ 1.

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This distribution was not significant (chi-square [df¼ 2]¼ 1.27, p> .5). These data

are reported in Table 4.

RQ3 concerned the use of the three forms of character in these debates. Personal

qualities were by far the most common form of character utterance, accounting for

75% of themes. Ideals were next (19%) and leadership ability was rarely discussed

(6%) (chi-square [df¼ 2] 124.38, p< .0001). These data are shown in Table 5.

Hypothesis 5 expected that general goals would be used more often for acclaims

than attacks. In these data, general goals were the basis for acclaims in 84% of

instances and for attacks in 16% of cases. This distribution was statistically significant

(chi-square [df¼ 1]¼ 132.49, p< .0001). The final hypothesis predicted that ideals

were similarly used more often for acclaims than attacks; 87.5% of ideals were

acclaims and 12.5% were attacks. Statistical analysis revealed that this was significant

(chi-square [df¼ 1]¼ 27.0, p< .0001).

Discussion

These debates are an important site for testing Functional Theory: Political party is

even more highly important in parliamentary systems where citizens cannot vote

directly for their prime minister. Despite the fact that these debates were unusual

(some including candidates running for office in a country and some for the UK

parliament), in the aggregate and in some cases in each country, the predictions of

Functional Theory were confirmed in these data. Acclaims have no inherent drawbacks

Table 4 Forms of Policy in UK 2010 Election Debates

Past deeds Future plans General goals

Acclaims Attacks Acclaims Attacks Acclaims Attacks

Northern Ireland 10 12 6 0 43 4

Scotland 19 82 38 26 46 15

Wales 29 49 73 48 63 8

Total 58 143 117 74 152 27

201 (35%) 191 (33%) 179 (31%)

Table 5 Forms of Character in UK 2010 Election Debates

Personal qualities Leadership ability Ideals

Acclaims Attacks Acclaims Attacks Acclaims Attacks

Northern Ireland 11 30 8 9 6 1

Scotland 8 27 0 1 12 1

Wales 16 22 0 0 6 2

Total 35 79 8 1 24 4

114 (75%) 9 (6%) 28 (19%)

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and are the most common function, attacks have some risk of provoking backlash and

are the second most common functions, and defenses have three potential drawbacks

and are the least common function. Overall, more attacks were aimed at the leading

candidates (in this election, Labour and Conservative candidates) than other candi-

dates. Benoit and Wells (1996), for example, found that more attacks were directed

at Bush and Clinton in the 1992 presidential debates, with fewer criticisms of

Perot. Incumbent party candidates tend to acclaim more, and attack less, than

challengers—particularly when they discuss their record in office. The debates dis-

cussed policy more than character. Both general goals and ideals are easier to acclaim

than attack. These results are consistent with the findings of research on American

presidential debates (Benoit, 2007).

Why are there some exceptions in these data? Functional Theory concerns reasons

rather than causes. It predicts that candidates have reasons to acclaim more than they

attack and to attack more than they defend, but they are not forced (caused) to do so.

For example, most voters say they dislike mudslinging (e.g., Merritt, 1984; Stewart,

1975) so that gives candidates a reason to moderate their attacks. However, an

individual candidate may, for example, dislike an opponent or an opposing party

so much that he or she cannot resist the opportunities to attack in a debate. So, in

general, candidates in debates generally and in Northern Ireland and Wales in

2010 in particular, tend to acclaim more than they attack and attack more than they

defend. However, in 2010 in Scotland, attacks were most common.

Candidates tend to attack the leading candidates or parties most often. This was

the case in Scotland and Wales but not Northern Ireland. One possible explanation

is the idea just discussed, that Functional Theory concerns reasons not causes, so

exceptions do occur. Another possibility (and both explanations could be true) is that

the leading parties in this election were the Labour Party and the Conservative Party,

neither of which fielded candidates in Northern Ireland. Generally, candidates in

debates discuss policy more than character. This was true in all three debates but

not significantly so in Northern Ireland.

Conclusion

Political leaders debates are an important element of many modern campaigns.

Candidates have an opportunity to address voters; voters learn about the candidates

and political parties and their policies. Debates are covered extensively in the news,

providing another avenue for reaching voters. In 2010, the UK held Prime Minister

debates for the first time in the UK as well as in Northern Ireland, Scotland,

and Wales. Content analysis of debates in the latter three countries revealed both

similarities and differences compared to American presidential debates. In general,

candidates acclaimed more than they attacked—particularly incumbent party

candidates—and they discussed policy more than character. Incumbents acclaimed

more and attacked less when they discussed past deeds (record in office). However,

candidates are independent agents and sometimes do not conform to these expecta-

tions. Furthermore, in 2010 the Northern Ireland debate was different from the other

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debates in the United Kingdom because it included no candidates representing

the leading parties in the UK, Labour and Conservative. Debates are occurring

around the world and theory and research on political campaigns must

consider these important events, looking for both similarities and differences across

countries.

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