1 Negative Campaign and Electoral Law in Presidential Brazilian Elections Paper presented at XXII World Congress of Political Science Felipe Borba Professor at Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UniRio) Coordinator of Doxa – Laboratório de Pesquisa em Comunicação Política e Opinião Pública da Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro http://doxa.iesp.uerj.br/index.htm fborba@iesp.uerj.br felipe.borba10@gmail.com Abstract: The goal of this paper consists of investigating negative political advertizing in Brazil. This topic is eminently relevant given the growing academic literature which suggests that the tone of campaigns has important consequences for voting decisions, political participation, and the level of information available to electors. However, the majority of the studies on negative campaign strategies focus the electoral reality of the Unites States. Little is known about negative electoral advertizing in Latin American countries. This paper proposes to increase understanding of the role and function of negative campaigns based on the analysis electoral advertisements in the Brazilian presidential electoral campaigns in 1989, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2010, first and second rounds. The analysis per se consists of identifying the attacks made by candidates against their opponents and the codification of these messages according to variables whose elaboration was inspired by the methodology developed by Kaid and Johnston (1991). The focus lies in the identification of time spent with attacks, its evolution in time and the main strategies adopted. In a distinct vein, the paper also discusses the impact of the Brazilian legislation, which is highly regulating, on the frequency of attacks. The sample includes the analysis of political advertisement shown on television in the campaigns of 33 candidates and total 111 hours in video.