Party rhetoric isn’t usually empty talk, and tends to accurately reflect political and policy positions

Should political rhetoric be understood merely as symbolic but essentially empty talk? Using data on party rhetoric about the usage of nuclear energy after the Fukushima catastrophe across twelve countries, Daniel Bischof shows that rhetorical party positions appear to be strongly structured around party manifesto positions and that parties ‘walk like they talk’ with their policy efforts largely correlating with their rhetorical positions.