(No) Ideas for Tomorrow? Exploring Communicated Future Visions in German Politics During Crises and Beyond

Utopias imagine a better society. This utopian thinking is a catalyst for social change and inhibits anxiety about the future in times of crisis. The power of utopias has been harnessed in politics to persuade and mobilize audiences, with shared, positive future scenarios considered essential for a resilient democracy and for restoring hope in democratic processes. Yet, German politics passively finds itself in crisis mode, often criticized for its lack of future-oriented ideas. While narratives of nostalgia and backward-looking rhetoric are popular both among the public and in academic discourse, future-oriented narratives are largely overlooked in the political communication literature. This work in progress examines these future narratives through a mixed-method approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates and party manifestos of established German parties. Do times of crisis lead to a reduced focus on visions? How often do politicians talk about the future, and what are the themes of the visions mentioned across parties and ideologies? Preliminary findings imply a sharp drop of future-oriented narratives starting in 2010, shortly after the global financial crisis and the beginning of the polycrisis —a trend observed across all established parties. Since the populist radical right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) entered parliament in September 2017, it has become the party most frequently employing future narratives, showing significant differences from other parties (with the exception of the Greens and CDU). Additional evidence highlights inter-party contrasts in the sentiment of future visions and in the critique of other parties' perceived lack of vision. The project helps to understand the predicament in times of polycrisis between the deficiency of political visions despite its elevated significance.