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Which parties use simple language in their campaign messages, and do simple campaign messagesresonate with voters’ information about parties? This study introduces a novel link between the languageapplied during election campaigns and citizens’ ability to position parties in the ideological space. To thisend, how complexity of campaign messages varies across parties as well as how it affects voters’ knowledgeabout party positions is investigated. Theoretically, it is suggested that populist parties are more likely tosimplify their campaign messages to demarcate themselves from mainstream competitors. In turn, votersshould perceive and process simpler campaign messages better and, therefore, have more knowledge aboutthe position of parties that communicate simpler campaign messages. The article presents and validatesa measure of complexity and uses it to assess the language of manifestos in Austria and Germany inthe period 1945–2013. It shows that political parties, in general, use barely comprehensible language tocommunicate their policy positions. However, differences between parties exist and support is found forthe conjecture about populist parties as they employ signicantly less complex language in their manifestos.Second, evidence is found that individuals are better able to place parties in the ideological space ifparties use less complex campaign messages. The ndings lead to greater understanding of mass-elitelinkages during election campaigns and have important consequences for the future analysis of manifestodata
