Liberals Lecture, Conservatives Communicate: analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 speeches

Abstract

There is some evidence that liberal politicians use more complex language than conservative politicians. This evidence, however, is based on a specific set of speeches of US members of Congress and UK members of Parliament. This raises the question whether the relationship between ideology and linguistic complexity is a more general phenomenon or specific to this small group of politicians. To address this question, this paper analyzes 381,609 speeches given by politicians from five parliaments, by twelve European prime ministers, as well as speeches from party congresses over time and across countries. Our results replicate and generalize earlier findings: speakers from culturally liberal parties use more complex language than speakers from culturally conservative parties. Economic leftright differences, on the other hand, are not systematically linked to linguistic complexity.

Who Is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

“…Cultural conservatives who conceive of the nation in racially, linguistically, or religiously exclusive terms (i.e., nativists) might naturally find threatening aspects of democracy that permit all individuals to try to gain access to power (Drutman, Diamond, and Goldman 2018;Miller and Davis 2018). Moreover, cultural conservatism is associated with cognitive styles and dispositions that favor order, structure, simplicity, and certainty (Jost et al 2003;Schoonvelde et al 2019;Stenner 2005;Zmigrod, Rentfrow, & Robbins, 2018), as well as low education (e.g., Lipset 1959) and low cognitive ability (e.g., Carl 2014), which may yield nondemocratic preferences.…”

Who is Open to Authoritarian Governance within Western Democracies?

“…Cultural conservatives who conceive of the nation in racially, linguistically, or religiously exclusive terms (i.e., nativists) might naturally find threatening aspects of democracy that permit all individuals to try to gain access to power (Drutman, Diamond, and Goldman 2018;Miller and Davis 2018). Moreover, cultural conservatism is associated with cognitive styles and dispositions that favor order, structure, simplicity, and certainty (Jost et al 2003;Schoonvelde et al 2019;Stenner 2005;Zmigrod, Rentfrow, & Robbins, 2018), as well as low education (e.g., Lipset 1959) and low cognitive ability (e.g., Carl 2014), which may yield nondemocratic preferences.…”