Es scheint leider bei vielen im Morgenteam des DLF die Vorstellung vorzuherrschen, es sei schon kritischer Journalismus, wenn man die Gegenposition zum Interviewpartner einnimmt, egal wie hanebüchen diese Gegenposition ist.

Takeaway: the gap between citizen demand and reform reflects the strategic logic of party competition as much as principle. Reform needs the large governing parties, and they are least keen exactly when they could act. 10/

Government status matters, though: the same state party is less supportive in manifestos written in government than in opposition. This is clearest for the CDU and SPD, the parties that alternate in office most, though subsample estimates are noisier. 9/

Challenger parties (those that have not yet governed) support direct democracy much more than mainstream parties. But looking within parties over time, they don't drop the issue after entering government for the first time. 8/

Using data on continuous party positions on economic and cultural left-right dimensions (1990–2017) reveals that the cultural dimension is more strongly associated with support than the economic one. Support is higher at both cultural ends than in the middle. 7/

Regression analyses show that left-of-center manifestos contain significantly more supporting sentences than those of the centrist parties. Right-of-center parties also exceed the center, but by a smaller margin. Populism adds support beyond what left-right positioning predicts. 6/

Who talks about it favorably? The left-of-center Greens and Die Linke/PDS, but also the populist radical right AfD, in most of their manifestos. The liberal FDP and the social-democratic SPD only in about half. And the Christian Democratic CDU and CSU rarely. 5/

First finding: when parties mention direct democracy, they are almost always in favor. About 75% of sentences are supportive; fewer than 5% are opposed. Skeptical parties don't argue against it. They stay silent, as salience theory predicts. Over time, the topic gains traction. 4/

Data: 701 manifestos of German parties from national and state elections, 1975–2017. A custom dictionary finds 2,209 sentences on direct democracy. An LLM codes each as supporting, opposing, or neutral, validated against three human coders. 3/

The idea: parties can back direct democracy for two kinds of reasons. Ideological: the left favors wider participation; populists invoke popular sovereignty. Instrumental: challenger and opposition parties gain a route to policy influence that governing parties don't need. 2/

Actually, you are good to run in most urban constituencies without a name penalty. Actually, I am wondering whether in some areas a name like yours would confer a bonus. I live in Neukölln and would read any Arab name as a "home-town boy", while names like Obermaier would suggest the opposite.

Well, eyeballing @hudde.bsky.social's figure, he won't have reached the minimum of the scale (which runs to -5) by then but will CDU/CSU continue to hold on to him if the trend continues like this?