Democracy Talk in German Parliamentary Speeches Between 1919 and 2019

When liberal democracies are challenged from within, it is the responsibility of mainstream parties to defend its institutions. Much research has focused on illiberal and authoritarian challenges, but how do parliamentarians from mainstream parties defend the idea of liberal democracy rhetorically in parliamentary speeches when confronted with challenges to liberal democracy? We study mainstream parties' democracy talk - talk that defends or undermines liberal democracy - in parliaments of the Weimar Republic and re-unified Germany using a mixed methods approach. We first conduct a qualitative content analysis of important debates to unravel the argumentative patterns of mainstream parties when confronted with threats to liberal democracy. We then extrapolate our findings to all other debates using quantitative methods. Preliminary results suggest that contestation of democracy mainly occurs during the key moments analyzed, with less prevalence in other debates. In these moments, both mainstream and illiberal parties position themselves as (supposed) defenders of democracy but emphasize different aspects of it: mainstream parties highlight pluralism, rule of law, and minority rights, while illiberal challengers focus much more narrowly on civil liberties, especially freedom of speech. With both sides claiming to protect democracy, our findings suggest that mainstream parties need to explicitly communicate what kind of democracy they are defending in order to counter illiberal narratives.