The programs of the parties this year are longer and more incomprehensible compared to the previous federal election. A study has now found that a trend is continuing.
According to a Stuttgart study, the election programs of the parties for the federal election are more extensive than ever before – but they are also more difficult to understand than hardly any other in West German history.
According to the authors of the study, the programs for the upcoming election included monstrous words and tapeworm sentences with up to 79 words, as reported by the Stuttgart University of Hohenheim.
“The comprehensibility of the election programs often leaves a lot to be desired,” says communication scientist Frank Brettschneider, summarizing the results of the study. “Only in 1994 were the programs on average even more incomprehensible.” For the analysis, his team used software for complicated words or nested sentences. The analysis is part of a long-term project in which all 83 election programs of the parties represented in the German Bundestag or in three state parliaments have been examined since the federal election in 1949.
Another result: “Election programs are getting longer and longer,” explains Brettschneider. In the first federal election in 1949, the parties still formulated their plans with an average of 5,498 words, now there are 43,541 words per program – eight times as many.
The results are even worse than in the most recent federal election in 2017. “That is disappointing,” says Brettschneider. “Because all parties have made transparency and closeness to the citizen their flag in recent years.” With their “sometimes difficult to digest election programs”, however, they excluded a considerable part of the electorate.
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