Election Pledges and the Politics of the Psychological Distance

• In Event: Theoretical and Empirical Advances in the Study of Promissory Representation

Abstract

Rhetoric has been at the core interest of all those who study politics for literally millennia. Despite the long standing interest in the issue we still lack a systematic understanding of how exactly politicians strategically use their language in the political arena. We show that politicians adapt the displayed psychological distance to future events to systematically change the attention to policy issues of their interest. But the different psychological distances of speakers not only affects the political agenda, it also has tangible consequences for public policy. Proposing measures for event horizon, event resolution and construal directly from language, we investigate our claims using speeches from the opening ceremony at COP26 and also electoral pledges in Scotland and Sweden. We not only offer tools to study political rhetoric directly from language at scale, but our findings also have broader theoretical implications for all those who try to understand the strategic character of rhetoric and the role of time in politics.

Authors

• Christian Arnold, Cardiff University

• Hannah Dorothy Bechara, Hertie School of Governance

• Slava Jankin Mikhaylov, University of Essex