Political discourse that prioritizes evidence over intuition is measurably associated with better democratic outcomes and governance quality—a finding that quantifies the importance of epistemic rigor in public deliberation.
Researchers developed a method to measure whether political speech relies on evidence or intuition, then analyzed 15 million parliamentary speeches from 1946-2025 across seven countries. They found that speeches emphasizing evidence-based reasoning correlate with stronger democratic institutions and better governance, suggesting that how politicians talk about truth matters for democracy itself.