Prosecuting politicians for hate speech and the consequences for democracy

This book is about hate speech trials of politicians, and its effects on citizens. First, it maps 51 cases against 42 political leaders in nine countries since 1965. These leaders include, for instance, Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. After that, it theorizes about, and empirically assesses, four effects of these cases: effects on hate crime incidence, on the electoral support for the far right, on democratic support, and on legal system support. Based partly on pre-existing data and partly data we have collected ourselves, it empirically demonstrates under what circumstances these effects occur and how much uncertainty surrounds our conclusions. The data sources include surveys, police reports, experiments, and Twitter. To analyse these data we use a standard repertoire of statistical models, including advanced times series models. We explain our methodological choices and discuss our results and the uncertainties surrounding them. In the course of the book, we speak to various academic and societal debates, touching on questions such as: What drives hate crime? How to respond to populists? Does progressive litigation backfire? What fuels far-right voting? How to react to hate speech? What causes declines in democratic support? Our approach is dispassionate, focusing on simply measuring effects of hate speech trials. We arrive at relatively straightforward (and deeply concerning) findings, and argue that this empirical evidence must be taken into account when deciding to prosecute.