Narrative entanglement and populist resonance: storytelling strategies in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration

Narrative entanglement and populist resonance: storytelling strategies in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Narrative entanglement and populist resonance: storytelling strategies in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration Markus Rheindorf, Bastian Vollmer This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 6 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Why does radical-right rhetoric achieve disproportionate political resonance? This article argues that narrative structure itself enhances the persuasive force of elite communication. I introduce narrative entanglement – the density, diversity, and linkage of proto-narratives – as a rhetorical mechanism that increases cognitive accessibility, moral clarity, and affective coherence. Using a validated Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis on a corpus of German parliamentary debates (2019–2023), we show that radical-right legislators systematically deploy more and more varied narratives than other parties. Their deployment combines economic, cultural, and security storylines into cohesive accounts of crisis and threat and co-occur with elevated evaluative and crisis-related language. The findings demonstrate that narrative form – not only content – functions as a strategic resource shaping elite persuasion and norm change. The mechanism is generalizable to other contexts where populist actors seek to mobilize latent attitudes or shift the boundaries of acceptable political discourse. Humanities/Cultural and media studies Social science/Cultural and media studies Humanities/Language and linguistics Social science/Language and linguistics Social science/Politics and international relations Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 1. Introduction The rise of radical-right parties across advanced democracies raises a fundamental question for political science: what rhetorical mechanism enables radical-right actors to amplify the appeal of exclusionary positions? While many accounts emphasise crisis narratives, emotional appeals, or elite cueing, less attention has been paid to the formal organisation of political communication – the structure through which heterogeneous grievances are connected, moralised, and made cognitively accessible to audiences. Understanding this structure is essential for explaining why radical-right messages resonate even when underlying preferences or objective conditions remain stable. A growing literature shows that political actors routinely deploy narratives to link events in time, attribute responsibility, and produce moral evaluations (Ricoeur 1984; Somers 1994; Wodak 2015). Research on migration discourse has identified recurrent “proto-narratives” – such as threat, burden, threat to generosity, or humanitarian duty – that circulate across political and media fields (anonymized). Yet we know remarkably little about how such storylines are combined within single acts of political speech, and whether this combination itself constitutes a distinctive rhetorical resource. This article proposes narrative entanglement as a mechanism through which radical-right actors enhance the persuasive and mobilising force of their messages. Narrative entanglement captures the density, diversity, and internal linkage of proto-narratives within a political utterance – the extent to which economic, cultural, and security storylines are woven into cohesive accounts of national threat or decline. Rather than treating narratives as isolated frames, this concept foregrounds the connective logic of storytelling: a structure that multiplies entry points for agreement, increases affective coherence, and reduces interpretive uncertainty. Such linkage mirrors what theories of populism describe as moral polarisation and stylistic density (Laclau 2005; Moffitt 2016), but provides a measurable, structural account of how these effects are achieved. From this mechanism, the article derives a set of expectations regarding cross-party differences in narrative structure and its association with evaluative and crisis-related language. Germany offers a strategic setting in which to examine this mechanism. Since 2015, debates on irregular migration have become a central arena of political contestation in the Bundestag, providing fertile ground for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and its fusion of economic, cultural, and security grievances into a unifying antagonism between responsible insiders and threatening outsiders. Prior research shows how this party mobilises moral resentment and national decline (anonymized), but the formal mechanics of this mobilisation remain underexplored. This study situates narrative entanglement within broader theories of rhetorical persuasion, populist mobilisation, and norm diffusion, and tests whether it varies systematically across parties. Using a 19.2-million-word corpus of German parliamentary debate (2019–2023) and applying Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis, the article identifies and quantifies recurrent proto-narratives and their interconnections. It then evaluates whether radical-right actors systematically deploy more entangled narrative structures than mainstream parties, and whether these structures coincide with evaluative intensity and crisis framing. In doing so, the article advances research on elite communication by demonstrating that narrative form – not only content – constitutes a strategic rhetorical resource. The findings provide a structural explanation for the distinctive resonance of radical-right discourse and offer a generalisable mechanism applicable to other contexts in which populist actors mobilise latent attitudes or shift the boundaries of legitimate political expression. 2 Theoretical-Conceptual Framework 2.1 Discourse, narrative, and moralisation Political talk about irregular migration operates within discourse: socially and institutionally patterned ways of assigning meaning that reproduce or challenge power relations (Fairclough 1992; van Dijk 1998; Wodak and Meyer 2016). Discourse shapes what counts as knowledge, whose voices are authoritative, and how political problems become intelligible. These discursive formations are not inert; they configure interpretive expectations long before specific arguments are made, pre-structuring which causal attributions appear plausible and which evaluative stances appear legitimate. Within this broader field, narrative has been identified as a key organising device. It links events temporally, attributes intention, sequences causality, and embeds evaluation (Ricoeur 1984; White 1987; Somers 1994). Narratives are not merely containers for content: they impose moral structure. They identify agents and victims, distribute responsibility, and construct normative horizons. Because narratives condense complexity into familiar storylines, they offer audiences interpretive shortcuts. This is particularly salient in debates on migration, which activate deeply sedimented cultural schemata of mobility, danger, hospitality, and transgression. Recent research on German migration discourse demonstrates that political and media actors draw on a stabilised repertoire of narrative schemata that combine institutional logics with moral judgement (anonymized). Rather than unfolding as complete stories, parliamentary contributions commonly activate proto-narratives – partial storylines that contain canonical elements such as a setting, actors, a conflict, and an anticipated resolution. Such proto-narratives include threat, burden, threat to generosity, loss of control, abuse of hospitality, and rescue. They may be brief, sometimes implicit, and often only partially realised in surface grammar, but they carry recognisable causal and moral structures. These proto-narratives do not appear in isolation. The Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak 2015) has shown that political utterances integrate them with argumentation. Topoi justify claims through culturally shared warrants; narrative emplotment sequences these warrants into unfolding arcs of crisis, responsibility, and consequence. The cumulative effect is that migration debates become moralised: what begins as administrative or policy-relevant language turns into stories of threat, violation, decline, or duty. These processes are contested by counter-narratives that frame migration in terms of solidarity, accountability, and shared responsibility (Vollmer et al. 2025), but the institutional structure of parliamentary debate tends to favour dominant storylines. 2.2 Populism, far-right rhetoric, and the politics of affect Populism constructs a moral boundary between a virtuous people and corrupt elites (Mudde 2007; Aslanidis 2016). Far-right populism adds nativism, exclusion, and authoritarianism, generating a communicative style marked by emotional intensification, crisis dramatization, and moral simplification (Wodak 2015; anonymized; Moffitt 2016; de Cleen and Stavrakakis 2017). The power of this style does not stem only from its ideological content but from its form: the condensation of heterogeneous grievances into easily recognisable oppositions. Migration debates offer particularly fertile ground for this style. They activate concerns about security, cultural cohesion, labour competition, welfare pressure, and national identity. Far-right actors exploit this multidimensionality by fusing these issues into a single antagonism between responsible insiders and threatening outsiders. This fusion is not accidental: it yields communicative advantages. It broadens the scope of mobilisation by creating entry points for multiple grievances, and it amplifies affect by aligning economic, cultural, and moral concerns. The affective power of far-right rhetoric derives not only from evoking threat but from producing emotional coherence. The literature on political affect demonstrates that emotions are not independent reactions but structured by narrative cues that assign meaning to events (anonymized). A single narrative of national decline can anchor anger, fear, and resentment simultaneously, making interpretive conflicts less cognitively demanding. Far-right communication exploits these affordances through stylistic density, internal repetition, and crisis escalation – features that narrative entanglement formalises. 2.3 Political attitudes to migration and the construction of irregularity Public attitudes toward migration combine instrumental, sociotropic, and symbolic considerations (Ceobanu and Escandell 2010; Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014). Economic self-interest plays a limited role, while perceptions of cultural threat and insecurity strongly predict restrictive preferences (Sides and Citrin 2007). Importantly, these perceptions are shaped by discursive cues rather than direct experience. The attribution of intention (“they come to exploit the system”), causality (“their presence undermines security”), or moral character (“they disregard our laws”) transforms administrative categories into moral categories. Empirical corpus-based work in Germany has shown that political and media fields converge around shared frames of threat, control, and deservingness, thereby constructing irregular migration as a moralised field of governance rather than a technical or legal category (anonymized). These findings echo earlier discourse-analytic research demonstrating how political and media narratives jointly produce moral grammars of mobility, tying legitimacy and responsibility to specific storylines (anonymized). Critical border scholarship similarly argues that irregularity is a discursive and bureaucratic production (Bigo 2002; De Genova 2013; Squire 2011; Huysmans 2000). Labels such as illegal or irregular are not neutral descriptors but hinge on narrative logics that ascribe wrongdoing, risk, and crisis. Experiments show that metaphors like waves or floods increase support for restrictive policies (Charteris-Black 2006; Hart 2010; Thibodeau 2017). These metaphors work because they embed proto-narratives of threat and loss of control into ostensibly factual language. Parliamentary discourse is particularly consequential because it crystallises these meanings within institutional arenas that enjoy epistemic authority. Debates on irregular migration function not only as deliberation but as a site of narrative production, where proto-narratives are activated, layered, and linked. The density and interconnection of these storylines shape the interpretive environment that audiences subsequently encounter in media coverage, social networks, and political campaigns. 2.4 Narrative entanglement: concept and dimensions We conceptualise narrative entanglement as the co-activation and interlinking of multiple proto-narratives within a single political text or speech. It captures a formal and functional property of discourse: how narratives multiply, diversify, and connect to produce moral and affective coherence. Rather than focusing on isolated storylines, the concept foregrounds the connective logic of political storytelling – how distinct plots about migration, labour, crime, culture, or identity are woven into one evaluative and emotional configuration. Building on existing research, we distinguish three complementary dimensions: (1) Narrative density (number) To measure narrative density, we count how many instances of narrative occur within one segment. Each narrative instance is included, so that multiple instantiations of the same proto-type are counted each time. (2) Narrative variety (diversity) The quantification of discrete proto-narratives in a speaker’s turn parallels work on multi-frame messages and framing under competition (Chong and Druckman 2007; Lecheler and de Vreese 2019), which demonstrates that persuasion often depends on exposure to several frames rather than a single one. Our measure translates this logic to the micro-unit of parliamentary utterances, corresponding to research on frame diversity and interpretive diversity in political communication (Matthes 2012; Neuman et al. 2014). (3) Level of entanglement (narrative linkage) The extent of co-occurrence or juxtaposition of multiple narratives within the same passage, explicitly connected or framed by the same macro-topic, mirrors the concept of frame co-presence or multi-frame exposure in competitive framing studies (Matthes 2012; Hänggli and Kriesi 2012). A higher level indicates that more activated narratives are sequentially or simultaneously presented. The intensity of integration among narratives – whether they merely coexist or are bound through causal, temporal, or evaluative relations – extends Laclau’s (2005) articulation logic and draws on evidence from metaphor clustering in migration discourse (Charteris-Black 2006; Musolff 2016). High-degree entanglement occurs when storylines are causally chained, linked by shared metaphors (“flood,” “wave,” “burden”), or fused through recurrent evaluative lexis (problem, failure, danger, crisis). Throughout the paper, narrative entanglement refers specifically to these three structural features of political storytelling – density, diversity, and internal linkage – that together heighten the cognitive accessibility, affective coherence, and moral clarity of an utterance. While prior research has examined multi-frame messages (Chong and Druckman 2007) and interpretive diversity (Matthes 2012; Neuman et al. 2014), these approaches do not capture the connective logic through which narratives are combined and moralised in political speech. The present framework extends this work by conceptualising narrative entanglement as a multidimensional form of discursive complexity – spanning number, variety and level – that systematically links narrative structure to affective and ideological function. 2.5 Narrative entanglement as a rhetorical mechanism Narrative entanglement enhances rhetorical efficacy through mutually reinforcing mechanisms: Affective economy. When heterogeneous storylines converge on the same moral conclusion, emotional intensities accumulate. Anger, fear, and resentment are scaffolded across multiple narratives, making the overall message feel urgent and morally unambiguous. Cognitive accessibility. Multiple overlapping cues increase the likelihood that audiences will retrieve at least one storyline that resonates with their predispositions (Entman 2010). Redundant cues ease processing, especially for low-information audiences. Normative closure. Entanglement simplifies attribution of responsibility. Diverse grievances – criminality, welfare competition, cultural change – are linked to a single antagonist. The result is not argumentation but moral inevitability. Intertextual portability. Modular storylines can circulate across institutional fields while retaining coherence (Reisigl and Wodak 2016). Once narratives are entangled, journalists or party communicators can extract any part without losing the evaluative centre. These mechanisms echo findings from competitive framing (Chong and Druckman 2007) and metaphor-led threat cues (Thibodeau 2017), explaining why densely connected narratives often outperform factually richer but weakly linked ones in terms of mobilising audiences. Stylistically, high entanglement employs exact repetitions, explicit linkage (e.g. through conjunctions) and metaphor chains. Their cumulative effect, we hypothesize, is that entangled narratives appear more coherent, more complete, and more morally authoritative than unconnected storylines. They provide strategic benefits to actors seeking to shift norms or mobilise latent preferences. If effective use of narrative confers cognitive, affective, and normative advantages, then radical-right actors – whose rhetoric relies on crisis dramatization and moral simplification – should systematically deploy narratives differently. We therefore expect: cross-party differences in density, variety, and linkage, positive associations between entanglement and evaluative/emotional lexis, and strong alignment between entanglement and crisis framing. 3 Data and Methodology 3.1 Research design and case selection The empirical analysis draws on the German component of the [anonymized] corpus, consisting of parliamentary plenary debates on irregular migration between January 2019 and December 2023. Germany offers a theoretically valuable setting because it combines high political salience of migration with institutionalised parliamentary debate and the presence of a consolidated radical-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). These features make it possible to examine whether radical-right legislators adopt systematically different narrative structures from mainstream parties under conditions of high issue competition and institutional visibility. The period 2019–2023 captures post-2015 stabilization of migration politics, ongoing contestation around asylum and border governance, and the re-emergence of crisis framing linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. Plenary speeches are an ideal data source for analysing elite rhetoric. They provide scripted yet responsive communication, follow consistent institutional formats, and are publicly broadcast, making them part of the wider mediated information environment. As such, parliamentary speech is both a site of elite signalling and a generator of narrative templates that circulate into media reporting, party communication, and public debate. The [anonymized] corpus comprises approximately 19.2 million words from all plenary sessions containing references to migration, asylum, borders, deportation, integration, or related terms, identified through keyword searches and verified through contextual inspection. All parties represented in the Bundestag during the period are included. 3.2 Analytical Approach The analytical design of this study follows the Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis (CBNA) framework (anonymized). CBNA integrates corpus linguistics and narrative analysis to trace how lexical patterning gives rise to recurring storylines – or proto-narratives – within large-scale discourse data. It operationalises narrative not as a purely interpretive category but as an empirical structure detectable through frequency, collocation, and concordance patterns. Grounded in Ricoeur’s (1985) concept of emplotment and the linguistic modelling of narrative quality in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin and Rose 2008; Salmaso 2014), CBNA treats narrative as a meso-level phenomenon that links micro-level linguistic choices to macro-level ideological formations (Georgakopoulou and Giaxoglou 2019). This hybrid framework allows researchers to capture both the breadth of quantitative patterning and the depth of narrative meaning that animates political discourse. Methodologically, CBNA proceeds through seven iterative steps to identify proto-narratives (anonymized): Frequency analysis: identify high-salience lexical items that anchor discourse about migration (e.g., migration, refugee, asylum). Semantic grouping: aggregate frequent items into macro-topics (e.g., Politics and Governance, Crime, Crisis) to reveal dominant thematic preoccupations. On the abstraction level we build proto-narratives, lexical difference does not matter; ‘to attack and ‘to assault realise the same proto-narrative structure. Collocation mapping: discover statistically significant co-occurrences that signal potential narrative relations – agents, actions, settings, evaluations. Base word selection: choose key lexical items to anchor narrative structures, e.g., ‘migrant’ and ‘migration’. Filling narrative valency: Proto-narrative construction combines collocational evidence with qualitative interpretation to model schematic storylines – abstract templates specifying characters, actions, means, settings, and moral outcomes (e.g., “more and more migrants have been arriving in Germany, crossing the border illegally, and creating chaos for German citizens”). Proto-narrative validation: constructs are validated through KWIC concordances to ensure that each proto-narrative recurs across contexts with coherent narrative sequencing. Tracing instantiations: Find and qualitatively analyse concrete linguistic realisations of proto-narrative patterns in context. This procedure transforms corpus-linguistic data into narrative-analytical constructs, enabling a replicable mapping of storytelling strategies across hundreds of political texts. In contrast to earlier corpus-assisted approaches (Gabrielatos & Baker 2008; Baker et al. 2008; Mautner 2015), CBNA uses corpus metrics not merely to illustrate discourse phenomena but to construct and validate narrative structures themselves. It thereby operationalises the DHA’s understanding of narratives as meso-level organising patterns while extending its empirical reach. In the present study, CBNA is employed to identify migration-related narratives circulating in German parliamentary and governmental discourse on irregular migration. Since many of the texts in the corpus contain turns by several speakers – i.e., within one parliamentary sitting, numerous MPs speak – these texts were coded for speakers in MaxQDA, each code including the speaker’s full name, political function and official party-affiliation, if any. Where texts did not contain multiple speakers, they were coded as one turn. Where texts did not name individuals as authors but political organisations, the respective party was coded as speaker in addition to the code for party-affiliation. Next, all text segments, i.e. relevant turns, were coded for the presence of the narratives thus identified, allowing us to measure narrative entanglement along the four dimensions outlined above for individual speaker turns, speakers, and party affiliation – thus ultimately allowing comparison between individual speakers as well as between parties. For dimension (1), narrative density, we calculated the total number of discrete narratives occurring within each speaker turn. Where the same proto-narrative was realised in two discrete forms within the same turn, both instances were counted. We then also calculated the mean average of narratives per turn for each political party. For dimension (2), variety (diversity) of narratives, we calculated the number of unique proto-narratives found in each speaker turn. Where a speaker repeats or varies the realisation of the same proto-narrative within a single turn, this was counted as one proto-narrative. This allowed to calculate the mean average variety of narratives for each political party. For dimension (3), level of entanglement, we identified narrative overlap between the concrete realisations of narratives within each turn. Narrative overlap is defined here as cohesive devices (Halliday and Hasan 1976; de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981) that entangle discrete narratives through reference and repetition, including referential ties such as anaphora, cataphora, and deixis, and lexical ties such as exact repetition, derivational repetition, synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy (Hoey 1991; Tanskanen 2006). In addition, explicit linkage, e.g., in the form of conjunctions, indicating causality between discrete narrative, were also coded. Due to the different nature of items relevant to this construct, level of entanglement is difficult to measure or express numerically. Does a causality-indicating conjunction like “therefore” create a higher level of entanglement than the exact repetition of a character in two narratives, or the exemplification of a collective character (“migrants”) through a stereotypically named individual (“Muhammad”)? The countless possible variations of narrative overlap through linguistic means defy an automatic quantification of level of entanglement calculated from number and type of linguistic features. Thus, we opted for a qualitative analysis that takes into consideration not only type and number of linguistic features but also context, spacing and distance within a speaker turn. For instance, no entanglement occurs when narratives are co-present within the same turn, not linked through any linguistic features, and separated by at least one sentence. Low-level entanglement occurs when narratives are adjacent but not explicitly linked linguistically; here, the link might well be implied but there is no evidence to point to. Medium-level entanglement involves at least one linguistic overlap of any kind (referential or lexical, e.g. pronouns). High levels of narrative entanglement require linkage through multiple overlaps, including any combination of referential and lexical ties. Maximum-level entanglement occurs when both referential or lexical ties and explicit chaining, e.g., through conjunctions, are used to link narratives. Each level of entanglement was also assigned a numerical value to facilitate statistical analysis of the results (see Table 1). [place Table 1 about here] Entanglement level Value assigned Criteria Example No 0 No link Germany is not an immigration country, Germany has never been an immigration country. No matter what you keep telling the German people, they recognise the truth. But while we debate domestic priorities, the European Union continues down a path that treats our borders as symbolic rather than real. In Brussels, officials speak of shared responsibility and humanitarian duty, but in practice this has become an open invitation. Low 1 Adjacent Millions are completely unemployed, 2.5 million people between the ages of 20 and 34 have no vocational qualification, and many hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost in the next few years due to digitalisation. You have brought 2.5 million so-called refugees into the country since 2014, 1 million Ukrainians last year alone and 135,000 people from all over the world this year alone. Medium 2 Referential or lexical tie We don’t have the problem that we have too few people in our country. We have the problem that we have far too many people in our country who have not been socialised, who don’t qualify and who don’t integrate, except into our social system. High 3 Multiple ties […] you open the flood gates . With your policy , you are primarily attracting soldiers of fortune who already have no prospects or are terribly underqualified in their home country. Maximum 4 Multiple ties and explicit chaining […] we have the problem that we have far too many people in our country who have not been socialised, who don’t qualify and who don’t integrate, except into our social system. And yet , instead of addressing this problem you are making matters worse, you open the flood gates to more and more of those people and thereby betray the voters’ trust placed in you . Table 1: Level of narrative entanglement 3.3 Comparative analysis The coded dataset was analysed and then compared for each party as well as across an inferred left-centre-right continuum (Die Linke, FDP, Greens, SPD, CDU/CSU, AfD) to test three hypotheses. Distributional hypothesis (H1): Far-right populist MPs exhibit higher density, variety and level of narrative entanglement than centrist or left-leaning MPs. Affective-Moralisation hypothesis (H2): High entanglement co-occurs with stronger evaluative and emotional lexis. Crisis-salience hypothesis (H3): Speeches with greater entanglement incorporate more crisis lexis, enhancing perceived urgency and credibility. To test H1, a one-way ANOVA was conducted with party affiliation as the independent variable and the three entanglement dimensions – narrative density, variety, and level of entanglement – as dependent variables. The analysis tests whether the mean values of these dimensions differ significantly across parties, that is, whether the structural complexity of migration-related storytelling varies systematically along political lines. Because the three measures are count-like or ordinal and not normally distributed, ANOVA assumptions may be partially violated. To address this, we additionally conducted a Kruskal-Wallis test for each dependent variable as a non-parametric robustness check. This test evaluates whether the distribution of narrative density, variety, and entanglement differs across parties without assuming normality or equal variances. Results from Kruskal-Wallis tests mirror those of the ANOVA, confirming that differences between parties are not artifacts of parametric assumptions. To test H2, we examined whether highly entangled segments co-occurred with stronger evaluative and emotional lexis. Quantitatively, the strength of moralisation was estimated through Pearson correlations between level of entanglement and the relative frequency of evaluative and emotional terms, measured using the SentiWS 2.0 German sentiment lexicon, a widely used German sentiment lexicon that assigns polarity and intensity scores to adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs based on their affective orientation (Remus et al. 2021). The lexicon covers more than 16,000 positive and negative word forms and has been validated for social-science and linguistic applications, making it suitable for estimating the relative emotional load of political discourse segments. To test H3, we analysed whether speeches with greater density, variety or level of entanglement incorporated more crisis lexis – that is, explicit references to crises (economic, security, technological, or demographic). Quantitatively, this was assessed through co-occurrence analysis of crisis-related lemmas such as “Krise” [crisis], “Gefahr” [danger], “Bedrohung” [threat], “Flut” [flood] and “Überforderung” [overwhelming] within single turns. Together, these procedures provide complementary evidence on how structural and lexical properties of narrative entanglement vary across parties and how they relate to the moral and affective dimensions of political storytelling. 3.4 Validity and Limitations Combining CBNA with the three-dimensional analysis of narrative entanglement provides a robust framework for examining the use of narratives in German politics, yet several limitations apply. First, the corpus was purpose-built to study the discursive construction of irregular migration in Germany. Because migration has been a controversial and increasingly galvanising topic in German politics, the dataset likely captures the characteristic strategies of far-right populist parties – whose rhetoric has been especially focused on this issue – while underrepresenting the narrative strategies employed by left or non-populist parties when addressing their own key topics. Second, the identification of proto-narratives and the coding of their interrelations are analytically guided, relying on theoretically informed interpretation rather than fully automated clustering (Ricoeur 1984; Wodak 2015). Third, while quantitative measures ensure transparency and replicability, affective nuance and rhetorical tone cannot be entirely captured through numerical indicators. Fourth, the corpus represents elite political discourse – parliamentary and governmental communication within the Bundestag – and therefore reflects institutionalised modes of argumentation and performance; the findings cannot be generalised to social-media or everyday discourses. Finally, the analysis is descriptive and associative; identifying causal pathways between narrative structure and public opinion requires designs beyond the scope of this article. Despite these constraints, triangulating corpus-based narrative analysis with discourse-historical contextualisation yields a fine-grained understanding of how the form of storytelling – its density, variety, and level of interconnection – correlates with ideological orientation and emotional appeal. The methodology thus operationalises narrative theory for empirical discourse research and provides a transparent foundation for the results presented in Section 4. 4. Results This section evaluates the three hypotheses derived from the theoretical mechanism of narrative entanglement. Across all tests, results indicate systematic, ideologically patterned variation in narrative density, variety, and linkage, and demonstrate clear associations between entanglement and both evaluative/emotional and crisis-related lexis. 4.1 Overview of data structure In the corpus of 282 plenary session transcripts, each text comprises multiple speaking turns. With an average of 26 turns per parliamentary transcript, the corpus represents 7,284 speaking turns in total. These include contributions from several hundred MPs across all parties represented in the Bundestag between 2019 and 2023, covering both government and opposition perspectives. Only a subset of these turns explicitly address migration, yielding a total of 792 turns, i.e., analytic units. The turn is the appropriate analytic unit because it captures a coherent segment of argumentation and narrative activation within parliamentary speech, while avoiding inflation from longer contributions or procedural interventions (see Table 2). Party Turns Share CDU/CSU 234 29.5% SPD 168 21.2% AfD 171 21.6% Greens 108 13.6% FDP 81 10.3% Die Linke 30 3.8% Total 792 100% Table 2: Speaking turns pertaining to migration by party affiliation [place Table 2 about here] Considering that speaking time in the German Bundestag is accorded by seats, larger parties’ MPs get proportionally more speaking time overall than smaller parties; the following figure corrects for this and shows the number of turns used by each party’s MPs to talk about migration relative to the number of seats they held during the 19 th and 20 th Bundestag, the two periods relevant to the timeframe considered here (1 January 2019 – 31 December 2023). 1 Comparing the share of migration-related speaking turns with the seat distribution in the 19th Bundestag (2017–2021) reveals a pronounced asymmetry between parliamentary strength and issue emphasis. The AfD is most strongly overrepresented, contributing 21.6 % of migration-related turns despite holding only 13.3 % of seats – an increase of roughly 60 % relative to its parliamentary weight. The Greens also devote more attention to migration than proportional representation would predict, with 13.6 % of turns versus 9.4 % of seats (+45 %). By contrast, the CDU/CSU (29.5 % vs. 34.7 %) and Die Linke (3.8 % vs. 9.7 %) are markedly underrepresented, speaking 15 % and 60 % less often, respectively, than their seat shares would suggest. The SPD (−2 %) and FDP (−9 %) fall close to proportional expectation. Overall, these disparities confirm that migration – especially irregular migration – is selectively amplified by the AfD and, to a lesser extent, the Greens, underscoring the ideological polarisation of issue salience in German parliamentary discourse. These proportions are even more skewed for the AfD in the 20 th Bundestag period, with the far-right populist party producing about 90 % more turns on migration than expected based on parliamentary strength alone. The CDU/CSU slightly exceeds proportional expectation (+10 %), reflecting its ongoing engagement with migration and security topics, while the SPD contributes substantially less (-24 %), consistent with its focus on governance and social-policy issues during its period in government. The Greens, FDP, and Die Linke all underperform relative to their seat shares (-15 % to -30 %), indicating a lower issue emphasis. Overall, the results again demonstrate that migration – especially in its irregular forms – is selectively overemphasised by right-wing populist actors, whose disproportionate discursive presence magnifies their visibility and frames the parliamentary agenda. 4.2 Proto-Narratives about migration The analysis yielded clear patterns in how narratives of irregular migration are structured and combined across German political parties. Quantitative results are presented first, followed by qualitative illustrations that demonstrate how these structural tendencies manifest in parliamentary discourse. Three dimensions were analysed: narrative density (the number of discrete proto-narratives per turn), variety (diversity of distinct proto-narratives), and level of entanglement (extent of referential and lexical overlap among them). The corpus contains a broad repertoire of proto-narratives through which migration is constructed. In total, twenty-seven distinct proto-narratives were identified across the dataset, which can be grouped into six broad thematic domains. The complete list of proto-narratives and their representative linguistic realisations is provided in Appendix A. Security and control narratives – Depict migration as a threat to order or safety. Examples: Irregular migrants live underground and evade authorities; Criminal refugees must be deported quickly; Unrestricted migration threatens social peace. Economic and labour narratives – Frame migration in terms of costs, labour competition, or economic dependency. Examples : Migration is a burden on taxpayers; Migrants steal German jobs; Germany depends on immigration for economic and demographic reasons; Irregular migrants are exploited in low-wage sectors. Cultural and integration narratives – Construct difference through religion, gender, or family norms. Examples : Young, male, Muslim migrants refuse to integrate and threaten stability; Integration begins in families where values are conveyed; It is not families but young men who are coming. Humanitarian and rights-based narratives – Legitimate protection and solidarity. Examples: Germany has a moral duty to protect persons in residence illegality; Irregular migrants have human rights and need support; Irregular migrants have a right to family. Institutional and governance narratives – Shift responsibility to administrative or supranational levels. Examples : Irregular migration must be addressed at the EU level; Authorities have difficulties locating persons in residence illegality; The government has failed to protect workplaces and citizens. Global-causal narratives – Link migration to international crises and structural causes. Examples : War, climate change, and global inequality increase migration from the Global South; Crises intensify migration pressures worldwide. These proto-narratives form the conceptual substrate of the subsequent quantitative analysis. They co-occur and intertwine in varying frequency and constellations. The following sections quantify how often they are activated, combined and entangled across Germany’s political spectrum (see Table 3). ID Proto-narrative Turns (N) % of turns (792) Occurrences (N) % of occurrences Thematic domain 1 Many irregular migrants are living in Germany underground 48 6.1 66 5.7 Security & control 2 A growing number of illegal migrants are already in Germany 58 7.3 73 7.3 Security & control 3 Criminal refugees must be deported quickly 44 5.6 60 5.2 Security & control 4 Unrestricted migration threatens social peace 38 4.8 55 4.5 Security & control 5 Authorities / police cannot locate “illegals” 24 3.0 35 2.9 Security & control 6 Persons in residence illegality becoming criminal 22 2.8 31 2.6 Security & control 7 Migration is a burden on taxpayers / budget 72 9.1 90 9.0 Economic & labour 8 Migrants steal jobs / state neglects workers 40 5.1 52 4.5 Economic & labour 9 Irregular migrants exploited in agriculture / delivery 29 3.6 38 3.3 Economic & labour 10 Irregular migrants do undesirable jobs 34 4.3 48 4.1 Economic & labour 11 Undeclared work creates dependency / vulnerability 24 3.0 36 2.8 Economic & labour 12 Germany depends on immigration 30 3.8 45 3.6 Economic & labour 13 Young Muslim men refuse to integrate / threaten stability 62 7.8 78 8.0 Cultural & integration 14 Integration begins in families (values, radicalisation) 18 2.3 30 2.3 Cultural & integration 15 Not families but young men are coming 32 4.0 45 4.0 Cultural & integration 16 Germany cannot cope with migration from certain cultures 52 6.5 69 6.2 Cultural & integration 17 Persons in residence illegality need support / have rights 38 4.8 54 4.5 Humanitarianism & rights 18 Germany has a moral duty to protect such persons 34 4.3 49 4.1 Humanitarianism & rights 19 Irregular migrants have a right to family 29 3.6 43 3.3 Humanitarianism & rights 20 Migrants overcome difficulties through families 20 2.5 33 2.4 Humanitarianism & rights 21 Germany has taken in refugees / provides for them 26 3.3 40 3.1 Humanitarianism & rights 22 Ukrainian refugees want to remain in Germany 16 2.0 25 1.9 Humanitarianism & rights 23 Irregular migration must be solved at EU level 24 3.0 35 2.8 Institutions & governance 24 Authorities overwhelmed by residence-illegality cases 20 2.5 30 2.4 Institutions & governance 25 “Floods” of refugees overwhelm Germany 50 6.3 75 6.0 Institutions & governance 26 Crises / climate change / war intensify migration 34 4.3 48 4.1 Global-causal 27 Global inequalities and instability cause migration 26 3.3 40 3.1 Global-causal Total 792 100 % 1,323 100 % Table 3: Overview of proto-narratives’ frequency across turns [place Table 3 about here] Across the 792 migration-related turns in the corpus, security and economic narratives dominate, together accounting for roughly one-third of all mentions. The most frequent proto-narratives frame migration as a burden on taxpayers (9 %), as a growing and uncontrollable influx (7 %), and as a problem of integration and cultural threat (8 %). Humanitarian and rights-based narratives appear regularly but with lower frequency (about 20 % in total), while global-causal and institutional storylines remain marginal (each approx. 7 %). This distribution reflects the overall problematisation bias of parliamentary discourse: irregular migration is primarily narrated through frames of threat, cost, and control, whereas solidaristic and rights-based framings occur less often and tend to cluster around specific debates such as Ukrainian displacement or EU-level governance. In short, the corpus captures a discursive field where risk and responsibility are unevenly weighted, with problem-oriented storylines vastly outnumbering humanitarian ones. Significantly, 94.8 % of speaker turns that pertain to migration also contain identifiable narrative structures. Across turns, proto-narratives rarely appear in isolation: 62% of migration-related segments contain at least three distinct proto-narratives, and 41% contain four or more. This high degree of coactivation underlines the structural conditions for entanglement that the subsequent analysis quantifies. In other words, political discourse about migration in the Bundestag is heavily narrativised. This is not self-evident: it would be entirely possible for MPs to discuss migration through description, argumentation, or procedural explanation alone – for instance, by citing statistics, outlining legal provisions, or referring to administrative challenges. Yet, such purely expository forms are rare. Instead, speakers almost invariably embed such elements within narrative frames that assign actors, motives, and moral evaluations: migrants appear as protagonists or antagonists, institutions as enablers or protectors, and Germany itself as a threatened or compassionate agent. The pervasiveness of this narrativisation underlines that parliamentary debate on migration is not merely informational or argumentative but fundamentally emplotted, translating policy questions into stories of responsibility, causation, and consequence. 4.3 Cross-party variation in narrative density, variety, and entanglement (H1) The first hypothesis predicts that far-right populist speakers will show higher values along all three dimensions of narrative entanglement. The data strongly support this expectation. Significant differences emerged between parties in all three dimensions of narrative entanglement. A one-way ANOVA showed that party affiliation explains a substantial share of the variance in narrative density (p < .001 for all). Mean scores were highest for the AfD, followed by Union (CDU/CSU), while SPD, Greens, FDP, and Die Linke consistently scored lower and clustered closely together. 4.3.1 Narrative density In terms of narrative density – the total number of discrete narratives realised within a single turn – clear ideological differences emerge. AfD speakers exhibited by far the highest density, averaging 5.8 narratives per turn (SD = 0.8) and combining multiple storylines from several domains of migration discourse, most frequently security and control, economic and labour, and cultural and integration frames. CDU/CSU turns followed with a mean of 3.9 (SD = 0.9), while SPD and FDP averaged 2.8 (SD = 0.8) and 2.6 (SD = 0.8) respectively. The Greens (M = 2.1, SD = 0.7) and Die Linke (M = 2.0, SD = 0.7) displayed the lowest density, indicating relatively streamlined discourse structures. A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 112.5, p < .001, η² = .42. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, confirms these differences across parties, χ²(5) = 172.4, p < .001. Post-hoc tests show that AfD turns contained significantly more narratives than those of all other parties (p < .001), and CDU/CSU also exceeded the remaining groups at a smaller but still significant margin. The pattern thus confirms that narrative density increases systematically toward the ideological right, highlighting the rhetorical preference of far-right and conservative actors to couch policy claims in dense, multi-story narrative constructions (see Fig. 1). [place Figure about here] 4.3.2 Narrative variety The analysis of narrative variety – the number of distinct proto-narratives realised within a single speaker turn – shows a similarly polarised distribution across parties. AfD turns contained the most diverse narrative configurations, averaging 4.6 unique proto-narratives per turn (SD = 0.7) and combining storylines from several domains of migration discourse, most commonly security and control, economic and labour, and cultural and integration frames. CDU/CSU speakers followed with a mean of 3.1 (SD = 0.8), while SPD and FDP averaged 2.2 (SD = 0.7) and 2.4 (SD = 0.8) respectively. The Greens (M = 1.8, SD = 0.6) and Die Linke (M = 1.6, SD = 0.6) displayed the lowest variety, reflecting more focused or single-frame interventions. A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 88.3, p < .001, η² = .36. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, likewise indicates significant cross-party differences in narrative variety, χ²(5) = 159.7, p < .001. Post-hoc comparisons indicated that AfD turns were significantly more diverse than those of all other parties (p < .001), while CDU/CSU exceeded the remaining groups at a smaller but still significant margin. This pattern confirms that narrative diversity increases systematically toward the political right, reflecting a stronger rhetorical tendency to integrate security, economic, and cultural frames into multi-layered accounts of migration (see Fig. 2). [place Figure 2 about here] 4.3.3 Level of narrative entanglement Analysis confirms that higher narrative density and diversity correspond closely to deliberate narrative layering and connection. More than any other party, AfD speakers frequently chain proto-narratives through explicit repetitions and cohesive connectors, yielding a mean level of entanglement of 3.8 (SD = 0.5). This is followed by the SPD (M = 3.0, SD = 0.6), Greens (M = 2.9, SD = 0.5), CDU/CSU (M = 2.8, SD = 0.6), FDP (M = 2.7, SD = 0.7), and Die Linke (M = 2.7, SD = 0.8). A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 74.7, p < .001, η² = .32, indicating a large effect. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, yielded the same substantive pattern, χ²(5) = 164.3, p < .001. Post-hoc comparisons (Tukey HSD) showed that AfD speakers scored significantly higher than all other parties (p < .001), while differences among the remaining parties were not statistically significant. Unlike density and variety, the ordering for entanglement does not map cleanly onto a left–right continuum, suggesting that internal linkage is shaped by party-specific rhetorical styles as well as ideology. In discursive terms, this confirms that far-right populist rhetoric relies on intensive narrative linking, weaving together security, economic, and cultural frames into highly cohesive and affectively charged storylines about migration (see Fig. 3). [place Figure 3 about here] Across all three dimensions – narrative density, variety, and level of entanglement – the analysis indicates an ideological gradient in German parliamentary discourse on migration. Far-right populist rhetoric (AfD) displays the highest values on every measure, with turns that are simultaneously dense, diverse, and tightly interlinked. These speakers construct migration through multi-layered storytelling that fuses security, economic, and cultural frames into cohesive moral accounts of national threat and decline. The pattern is clearest for level of entanglement, the third dimension. AfD speakers are considerably more likely to weave multiple proto-narratives into a coherent narrative complex characterised by referential linkage, lexical repetition, and explicit chaining. Taken together, these results support H1 and show that narrative entanglement is a distinctive rhetorical feature of far-right parliamentary communication, not merely a by-product of higher issue salience or speaker-specific tendencies. 4.4 Narrative entanglement and evaluative/emotional lexis (H2) The second hypothesis posits that narrative entanglement will co-occur with stronger evaluative and emotional language. The data support this expectation. Across all parties, narrative entanglement correlates positively with the relative frequency of evaluative and emotional terms as measured through the SentiWS 2.0 German Sentiment Lexicon (Remus et al. 2021). The lexicon contains polarity and intensity scores for more than 16,000 positive and negative word forms (adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs). All lexical items matching SentiWS entries were counted and weighted by their polarity value. For every turn, the total number of sentiment-bearing tokens (positive + negative) was divided by the total token count, yielding a relative sentiment ratio expressed as a percentage. These values were then merged with the dataset containing narrative-analysis scores (density, diversity, and level of entanglement) for the same turns. Pearson product–moment correlations were calculated between each of the three dimensions of narrative deployment and the relative sentiment ratio to assess linear association strength and direction. Across the corpus, level of entanglement correlates with evaluative/emotional lexis at r = .41 (p < .001), variety at r = .34 (p < .001), and density at r = .33 (p < .001). The correlation coefficients were interpreted as moderate positive relationships, indicating that turns with higher narrative entanglement also contain proportionally more evaluative or emotional vocabulary. In addition, group means of sentiment ratios were compared across parties using one-way ANOVA and pairwise Tukey tests to identify significant inter-party differences in affective load. Finally, the most frequent sentiment-bearing adjectives and verbs were extracted by party to illustrate the lexical tendencies underlying the quantitative pattern – for instance, evaluative intensifiers and moral qualifiers (massive, dramatic, irresponsible, illegal) in AfD and CDU/CSU discourse versus more procedural or technocratic terminology (regulation, integration policy) in SPD and Green turns. The data thus substantiate H2: higher narrative entanglement is accompanied by stronger evaluative intensity and moral polarisation. 4.5 Narrative entanglement and Crisis Lexis (H3) The third hypothesis predicts that speeches with greater narrative entanglement will contain more crisis-related vocabulary. Co-occurrence analyses confirm that crisis-related lemmas appear more frequently in segments with higher narrative density, variety, and especially entanglement. To test H3, we quantified the occurrence of crisis-related lexis within each speaker turn and examined its association with narrative structure. A domain-specific crisis lexicon was compiled from existing migration-framing research and exploratory keyword analysis of the corpus. It included the lemmas “Krise” [crisis], “Gefahr” [danger], “Bedrohung” [threat], “überfordern” [overstrain], “Welle” [wave], “Flut” [flood], “Ansturm” [onslaught], “Anstieg” [rise], “Last” [burden], “Belastung” [burdening], “Überlastung” [overload], “Notfall” [emergency], and “Zusammenbruch” [collapse], including inflected and compound forms. All instances of these items were identified and their sum for each turn calculated, then normalised for turn length. Each turn thus received a crisis-lexis ratio, expressing the relative frequency of crisis terms. These ratios were merged with the dataset containing the narrative-deployment measures (density, diversity, and entanglement) and party labels. Pearson correlations assessed the linear relationship between crisis-lexis ratio and each narrative dimension. Results indicated moderate positive correlations (r ≈ 0.35–0.45, p < .001) across all three measures, suggesting that crisis vocabulary rises systematically with narrative complexity. To confirm that this effect was not driven by party or speech length, a multiple regression model was estimated with crisis-lexis ratio as the dependent variable and density, diversity, internal linkage, turn length, and party (dummy-coded) as predictors. In this model, internal linkage remains a strong predictor (β = 0.31, p < .001), controlling for party fixed effects and turn length. The other narrative-structure variables also remained significant (β ≈ 0.30–0.35, p CDU/CSU > others). Although the pattern is particularly pronounced among AfD speakers, it is observable across parties in debates addressing acute events or perceived governance failures. The strengthening of crisis framing within entangled narratives confirms H3 and demonstrates how narrative structure contributes directly to perceived urgency and credibility. 4.6 Synthesis Across all analyses, results support the central claim of the paper: narrative entanglement is unevenly distributed across parties and plays a structuring role in affective-moral and crisis-oriented rhetoric. Far-right actors deploy significantly denser, more diverse, and more tightly integrated narratives than mainstream parties. These structures correlate with intensified evaluative and crisis lexis, consistent with the mechanism of affective coherence and normative closure proposed in the theoretical section. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that narrative entanglement is not reducible to differences in issue salience or speaking time but a strategic rhetorical resource through which radical-right actors amplify the resonance of exclusionary positions. The next section discusses the implications of these results for theories of elite communication, persuasion, and norm change. 5 Discussion and Conclusion Our findings show that narrative form – its density, diversity, and entanglement – functions as a strategic resource in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration. Across all three dimensions, we observe a clear ideological gradient (H1): AfD turns are consistently the densest, most diverse, and most tightly linked; CDU/CSU occupies a middle position; and SPD, Greens, FDP, and Die Linke cluster at lower levels. These structural differences are not reducible to stylistic preference: they co-occur with evaluative/emotional lexis (H2, r ≈ .40) and crisis vocabulary (H3, r ≈ .35–.45), and the associations remain significant when controlling for party and turn length. In short, narrative deployment helps explain the affective and persuasive force of far-right discourse. The AfD’s strong performance on all three dimensions supports accounts of populism as a logic of moral polarisation and equivalence (Laclau 2005; Wodak 2015; Moffitt 2016). By weaving multiple proto-narratives (e.g., burden, threat, cultural decline) into single turns, speakers fuse heterogeneous grievances into one evaluative frame: the people versus outsiders and complicit elites. Entanglement thereby replaces detailed policy argumentation with affective coherence; density and linkage create a sense of explanation through structure, not evidence. From a discourse-historical perspective (Wodak 2015; anonymized), the high concentration of entanglement in migration debates shows how populist actors appropriate and intensify existing societal narratives. Cohesive ties – anaphora, synonymic reiteration, evaluative parallelism – ensure that each new utterance reactivates prior storylines, creating discursive saturation: repetition plus interconnection generates authority. By contrast, centrist and left-leaning parties’ lower entanglement aligns with institutional procedural and factual styles, which prioritise argumentative rationality but yield less affective traction in polarised arenas. The positive associations between narrative complexity, evaluative lexis (H2), and crisis framing (H3) point to a mechanism of affective coherence and cognitive economy. Entanglement reduces interpretive effort: once one link in the chain is accepted (e.g., economic burden), adjacent links (e.g., cultural threat, moral decline) feel self-evident. Crisis framing adds temporal urgency and existential stakes, further heightening plausibility. Thus, what may appear as emotional exaggeration propositionally is structurally functional narratively, organising emotion and inference simultaneously. Empirically, the study offers a replicable operationalisation of narrative structure (density, diversity, linkage) that captures formal differences in rhetorical style across parties. Theoretically, it shows how affective resonance emerges from narrative configuration, not solely from topics or stances, advancing dialogue between discourse analysis and populism research (Moffitt 2016; Wodak 2015). For migration studies, irregular migration functions as a discursive hub that aggregates economic, cultural, and moral anxieties; its open architecture helps explain the durability of anti-migrant mobilisation even when objective inflows fluctuate. Our measures target structural and lexical properties; future work could extend to prosodic, multimodal, and interactional features (e.g., televised debates, social media). Cross-national comparisons could test whether the observed entanglement–affect linkage generalises under different institutional conditions. Longitudinal analyses might probe temporal precedence, whether shifts in entanglement precede changes in public attitudes or track them reactively, clarifying causality. Taken together, the results demonstrate that narrative complexity is a mechanism of populist resonance. Far-right discourse succeeds not only through what is said but how it is structured: dense, diverse, and tightly linked storylines paired with evaluative and crisis lexis create cohesive, emotionally salient accounts that travel and stick. Recognising the form–function relation of narrative helps explain the communicative advantages of populist actors, the constraints of mainstream procedural styles, and the broader political stakes of narrative as a terrain of struggle in contemporary Germany. The results resonate with and complement the conclusions reported in Valentim (2024), which theorises the role of changing social norms in translating latent sympathies into public expression and political mobilisation. 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Sage, London Vollmer B et al (2025) Changing the story: The production of alternative narratives on migration. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 51(16):4157-4180. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2523111 White H (1987) The content of the form: Narrative discourse and historical representation. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore Wodak R, Meyer M (2016) Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed.). Sage, London Wodak R (2015) The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean. Sage, London Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files Codebook.docx Data.rar Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviews received at journal 01 May, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 30 Apr, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 22 Apr, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 13 Apr, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 08 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 08 Apr, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9170398","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":628939006,"identity":"094db321-78c5-479e-812e-0409bc313e30","order_by":0,"name":"Markus Rheindorf","email":"data:image/png;base64,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","orcid":"","institution":"University of Vienna","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Markus","middleName":"","lastName":"Rheindorf","suffix":""},{"id":628939007,"identity":"9fa10bdc-a8f4-400d-88d2-1c0384c7c605","order_by":1,"name":"Bastian Vollmer","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Catholic University of Applied Sciences","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Bastian","middleName":"","lastName":"Vollmer","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-03-19 14:08:29","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":108494363,"identity":"415b9853-d645-422c-818b-6ec6bb8ca63d","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 10:04:06","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":10911,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003enarrative density: mean number of discrete narratives per turn (by party)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/f267e38942ed9bf779ef5435.png"},{"id":108491274,"identity":"1cd23444-54af-45d8-9054-7d28f1fca05e","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 09:53:05","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":14951,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003enarrative diversity: mean number of unique proto-narratives per turn (by party)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/1f1047312a3d4b79766f4aac.png"},{"id":108494364,"identity":"daac102e-efc3-4263-a243-d660c068d25a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 10:04:06","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":14294,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003elevel of narrative entanglement: mean value for turns (by party)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/772d3d1ab8ff157732b0a922.png"},{"id":108496664,"identity":"2a22ca26-289e-48f2-9e85-747221576cfa","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 10:12:23","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":483337,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/cc4b24f9-f9c5-4931-ad28-761a036528a6.pdf"},{"id":108494867,"identity":"4aeb48a0-010f-4b6c-bca4-f8fdc70599b0","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 10:07:42","extension":"docx","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":24475,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Codebook.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/2ba9a493b180fbb27275338d.docx"},{"id":108494365,"identity":"586705bc-fd70-4e3f-bbbb-a7352dc2c899","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 10:04:07","extension":"rar","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":385860898,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Data.rar","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9170398/v1/a76b2a1b23d3384232ff2038.rar"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Narrative entanglement and populist resonance: storytelling strategies in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe rise of radical-right parties across advanced democracies raises a fundamental question for political science: what rhetorical mechanism enables radical-right actors to amplify the appeal of exclusionary positions? While many accounts emphasise crisis narratives, emotional appeals, or elite cueing, less attention has been paid to the formal organisation of political communication \u0026ndash; the structure through which heterogeneous grievances are connected, moralised, and made cognitively accessible to audiences. Understanding this structure is essential for explaining why radical-right messages resonate even when underlying preferences or objective conditions remain stable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA growing literature shows that political actors routinely deploy narratives to link events in time, attribute responsibility, and produce moral evaluations (Ricoeur 1984; Somers 1994; Wodak 2015). Research on migration discourse has identified recurrent \u0026ldquo;proto-narratives\u0026rdquo; \u0026ndash; such as threat, burden, threat to generosity, or humanitarian duty \u0026ndash; that circulate across political and media fields (anonymized). Yet we know remarkably little about how such storylines are combined within single acts of political speech, and whether this combination itself constitutes a distinctive rhetorical resource.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis article proposes narrative entanglement as a mechanism through which radical-right actors enhance the persuasive and mobilising force of their messages. Narrative entanglement captures the density, diversity, and internal linkage of proto-narratives within a political utterance \u0026ndash; the extent to which economic, cultural, and security storylines are woven into cohesive accounts of national threat or decline. Rather than treating narratives as isolated frames, this concept foregrounds the connective logic of storytelling: a structure that multiplies entry points for agreement, increases affective coherence, and reduces interpretive uncertainty. Such linkage mirrors what theories of populism describe as moral polarisation and stylistic density (Laclau 2005; Moffitt 2016), but provides a measurable, structural account of how these effects are achieved. From this mechanism, the article derives a set of expectations regarding cross-party differences in narrative structure and its association with evaluative and crisis-related language.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGermany offers a strategic setting in which to examine this mechanism. Since 2015, debates on irregular migration have become a central arena of political contestation in the Bundestag, providing fertile ground for the Alternative f\u0026uuml;r Deutschland (AfD) and its fusion of economic, cultural, and security grievances into a unifying antagonism between responsible insiders and threatening outsiders. Prior research shows how this party mobilises moral resentment and national decline (anonymized), but the formal mechanics of this mobilisation remain underexplored.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis study situates narrative entanglement within broader theories of rhetorical persuasion, populist mobilisation, and norm diffusion, and tests whether it varies systematically across parties. Using a 19.2-million-word corpus of German parliamentary debate (2019\u0026ndash;2023) and applying Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis, the article identifies and quantifies recurrent proto-narratives and their interconnections. It then evaluates whether radical-right actors systematically deploy more entangled narrative structures than mainstream parties, and whether these structures coincide with evaluative intensity and crisis framing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn doing so, the article advances research on elite communication by demonstrating that narrative form \u0026ndash; not only content \u0026ndash; constitutes a strategic rhetorical resource. The findings provide a structural explanation for the distinctive resonance of radical-right discourse and offer a generalisable mechanism applicable to other contexts in which populist actors mobilise latent attitudes or shift the boundaries of legitimate political expression.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2\tTheoretical-Conceptual Framework","content":"\u003ch2\u003e2.1 Discourse, narrative, and moralisation\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePolitical talk about irregular migration operates within discourse: socially and institutionally patterned ways of assigning meaning that reproduce or challenge power relations (Fairclough 1992; van Dijk 1998; Wodak and Meyer 2016). Discourse shapes what counts as knowledge, whose voices are authoritative, and how political problems become intelligible. These discursive formations are not inert; they configure interpretive expectations long before specific arguments are made, pre-structuring which causal attributions appear plausible and which evaluative stances appear legitimate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWithin this broader field, narrative has been identified as a key organising device. It links events temporally, attributes intention, sequences causality, and embeds evaluation (Ricoeur 1984; White 1987; Somers 1994). Narratives are not merely containers for content: they impose moral structure. They identify agents and victims, distribute responsibility, and construct normative horizons. Because narratives condense complexity into familiar storylines, they offer audiences interpretive shortcuts. This is particularly salient in debates on migration, which activate deeply sedimented cultural schemata of mobility, danger, hospitality, and transgression.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecent research on German migration discourse demonstrates that political and media actors draw on a stabilised repertoire of narrative schemata that combine institutional logics with moral judgement (anonymized). Rather than unfolding as complete stories, parliamentary contributions commonly activate proto-narratives \u0026ndash; partial storylines that contain canonical elements such as a setting, actors, a conflict, and an anticipated resolution. Such proto-narratives include threat, burden, threat to generosity, loss of control, abuse of hospitality, and rescue. They may be brief, sometimes implicit, and often only partially realised in surface grammar, but they carry recognisable causal and moral structures.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese proto-narratives do not appear in isolation. The Discourse-Historical Approach (Wodak 2015) has shown that political utterances integrate them with argumentation. Topoi justify claims through culturally shared warrants; narrative emplotment sequences these warrants into unfolding arcs of crisis, responsibility, and consequence. The cumulative effect is that migration debates become moralised: what begins as administrative or policy-relevant language turns into stories of threat, violation, decline, or duty. These processes are contested by counter-narratives that frame migration in terms of solidarity, accountability, and shared responsibility (Vollmer et al. 2025), but the institutional structure of parliamentary debate tends to favour dominant storylines.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e2.2 Populism, far-right rhetoric, and the politics of affect\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePopulism constructs a moral boundary between a virtuous people and corrupt elites (Mudde 2007; Aslanidis 2016). Far-right populism adds nativism, exclusion, and authoritarianism, generating a communicative style marked by emotional intensification, crisis dramatization, and moral simplification (Wodak 2015; anonymized; Moffitt 2016; de Cleen and Stavrakakis 2017). The power of this style does not stem only from its ideological content but from its form: the condensation of heterogeneous grievances into easily recognisable oppositions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMigration debates offer particularly fertile ground for this style. They activate concerns about security, cultural cohesion, labour competition, welfare pressure, and national identity. Far-right actors exploit this multidimensionality by fusing these issues into a single antagonism between responsible insiders and threatening outsiders. This fusion is not accidental: it yields communicative advantages. It broadens the scope of mobilisation by creating entry points for multiple grievances, and it amplifies affect by aligning economic, cultural, and moral concerns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe affective power of far-right rhetoric derives not only from evoking threat but from producing emotional coherence. The literature on political affect demonstrates that emotions are not independent reactions but structured by narrative cues that assign meaning to events (anonymized). A single narrative of national decline can anchor anger, fear, and resentment simultaneously, making interpretive conflicts less cognitively demanding. Far-right communication exploits these affordances through stylistic density, internal repetition, and crisis escalation \u0026ndash; features that narrative entanglement formalises.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e2.3 Political attitudes to migration and the construction of irregularity\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublic attitudes toward migration combine instrumental, sociotropic, and symbolic considerations (Ceobanu and Escandell 2010; Hainmueller and Hopkins 2014). Economic self-interest plays a limited role, while perceptions of cultural threat and insecurity strongly predict restrictive preferences (Sides and Citrin 2007). Importantly, these perceptions are shaped by discursive cues rather than direct experience. The attribution of intention (\u0026ldquo;they come to exploit the system\u0026rdquo;), causality (\u0026ldquo;their presence undermines security\u0026rdquo;), or moral character (\u0026ldquo;they disregard our laws\u0026rdquo;) transforms administrative categories into moral categories.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEmpirical corpus-based work in Germany has shown that political and media fields converge around shared frames of threat, control, and deservingness, thereby constructing irregular migration as a moralised field of governance rather than a technical or legal category (anonymized). These findings echo earlier discourse-analytic research demonstrating how political and media narratives jointly produce moral grammars of mobility, tying legitimacy and responsibility to specific storylines (anonymized).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCritical border scholarship similarly argues that irregularity is a discursive and bureaucratic production (Bigo 2002; De Genova 2013; Squire 2011; Huysmans 2000). Labels such as illegal or irregular are not neutral descriptors but hinge on narrative logics that ascribe wrongdoing, risk, and crisis. Experiments show that metaphors like waves or floods increase support for restrictive policies (Charteris-Black 2006; Hart 2010; Thibodeau 2017). These metaphors work because they embed proto-narratives of threat and loss of control into ostensibly factual language.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eParliamentary discourse is particularly consequential because it crystallises these meanings within institutional arenas that enjoy epistemic authority. Debates on irregular migration function not only as deliberation but as a site of narrative production, where proto-narratives are activated, layered, and linked. The density and interconnection of these storylines shape the interpretive environment that audiences subsequently encounter in media coverage, social networks, and political campaigns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e2.4 Narrative entanglement: concept and dimensions\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe conceptualise narrative entanglement as the co-activation and interlinking of multiple proto-narratives within a single political text or speech. It captures a formal and functional property of discourse: how narratives multiply, diversify, and connect to produce moral and affective coherence. Rather than focusing on isolated storylines, the concept foregrounds the connective logic of political storytelling \u0026ndash; how distinct plots about migration, labour, crime, culture, or identity are woven into one evaluative and emotional configuration.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBuilding on existing research, we distinguish three complementary dimensions:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(1) Narrative density (number)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo measure narrative density, we count how many instances of narrative occur within one segment. Each narrative instance is included, so that multiple instantiations of the same proto-type are counted each time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(2) Narrative variety (diversity)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe quantification of discrete proto-narratives in a speaker\u0026rsquo;s turn parallels work on multi-frame messages and framing under competition (Chong and Druckman 2007; Lecheler and de Vreese 2019), which demonstrates that persuasion often depends on exposure to several frames rather than a single one. Our measure translates this logic to the micro-unit of parliamentary utterances, corresponding to research on frame diversity and interpretive diversity in political communication (Matthes 2012; Neuman et al. 2014).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(3) Level of entanglement (narrative linkage)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe extent of co-occurrence or juxtaposition of multiple narratives within the same passage, explicitly connected or framed by the same macro-topic, mirrors the concept of frame co-presence or multi-frame exposure in competitive framing studies (Matthes 2012; H\u0026auml;nggli and Kriesi 2012). A higher level indicates that more activated narratives are sequentially or simultaneously presented. The intensity of integration among narratives \u0026ndash; whether they merely coexist or are bound through causal, temporal, or evaluative relations \u0026ndash; extends Laclau\u0026rsquo;s (2005) articulation logic and draws on evidence from metaphor clustering in migration discourse (Charteris-Black 2006; Musolff 2016). High-degree entanglement occurs when storylines are causally chained, linked by shared metaphors (\u0026ldquo;flood,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;wave,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;burden\u0026rdquo;), or fused through recurrent evaluative lexis (problem, failure, danger, crisis).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout the paper, narrative entanglement refers specifically to these three structural features of political storytelling \u0026ndash; density, diversity, and internal linkage \u0026ndash; that together heighten the cognitive accessibility, affective coherence, and moral clarity of an utterance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile prior research has examined multi-frame messages (Chong and Druckman 2007) and interpretive diversity (Matthes 2012; Neuman et al. 2014), these approaches do not capture the connective logic through which narratives are combined and moralised in political speech. The present framework extends this work by conceptualising narrative entanglement as a multidimensional form of discursive complexity \u0026ndash; spanning number, variety and level \u0026ndash; that systematically links narrative structure to affective and ideological function.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e2.5 Narrative entanglement as a rhetorical mechanism\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNarrative entanglement enhances rhetorical efficacy through mutually reinforcing mechanisms:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAffective economy. When heterogeneous storylines converge on the same moral conclusion, emotional intensities accumulate. Anger, fear, and resentment are scaffolded across multiple narratives, making the overall message feel urgent and morally unambiguous.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCognitive accessibility. Multiple overlapping cues increase the likelihood that audiences will retrieve at least one storyline that resonates with their predispositions (Entman 2010). Redundant cues ease processing, especially for low-information audiences.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eNormative closure. Entanglement simplifies attribution of responsibility. Diverse grievances \u0026ndash; criminality, welfare competition, cultural change \u0026ndash; are linked to a single antagonist. The result is not argumentation but moral inevitability.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eIntertextual portability. Modular storylines can circulate across institutional fields while retaining coherence (Reisigl and Wodak 2016). Once narratives are entangled, journalists or party communicators can extract any part without losing the evaluative centre.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese mechanisms echo findings from competitive framing (Chong and Druckman 2007) and metaphor-led threat cues (Thibodeau 2017), explaining why densely connected narratives often outperform factually richer but weakly linked ones in terms of mobilising audiences. Stylistically, high entanglement employs exact repetitions, explicit linkage (e.g. through conjunctions) and metaphor chains. Their cumulative effect, we hypothesize, is that entangled narratives appear more coherent, more complete, and more morally authoritative than unconnected storylines. They provide strategic benefits to actors seeking to shift norms or mobilise latent preferences.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf effective use of narrative confers cognitive, affective, and normative advantages, then radical-right actors \u0026ndash; whose rhetoric relies on crisis dramatization and moral simplification \u0026ndash; should systematically deploy narratives differently. We therefore expect:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n \u003cli\u003ecross-party differences in density, variety, and linkage,\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003epositive associations between entanglement and evaluative/emotional lexis,\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eand strong alignment between entanglement and crisis framing.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ul\u003e"},{"header":"3\tData and Methodology","content":"\u003ch2\u003e3.1 Research design and case selection\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe empirical analysis draws on the German component of the [anonymized] corpus, consisting of parliamentary plenary debates on irregular migration between January 2019 and December 2023. Germany offers a theoretically valuable setting because it combines high political salience of migration with institutionalised parliamentary debate and the presence of a consolidated radical-right party, the Alternative f\u0026uuml;r Deutschland (AfD). These features make it possible to examine whether radical-right legislators adopt systematically different narrative structures from mainstream parties under conditions of high issue competition and institutional visibility. The period 2019\u0026ndash;2023 captures post-2015 stabilization of migration politics, ongoing contestation around asylum and border governance, and the re-emergence of crisis framing linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePlenary speeches are an ideal data source for analysing elite rhetoric. They provide scripted yet responsive communication, follow consistent institutional formats, and are publicly broadcast, making them part of the wider mediated information environment. As such, parliamentary speech is both a site of elite signalling and a generator of narrative templates that circulate into media reporting, party communication, and public debate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe [anonymized] corpus comprises approximately 19.2 million words from all plenary sessions containing references to migration, asylum, borders, deportation, integration, or related terms, identified through keyword searches and verified through contextual inspection. All parties represented in the Bundestag during the period are included.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e3.2 Analytical Approach\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analytical design of this study follows the Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis (CBNA) framework (anonymized). CBNA integrates corpus linguistics and narrative analysis to trace how lexical patterning gives rise to recurring storylines \u0026ndash; or proto-narratives \u0026ndash; within large-scale discourse data. It operationalises narrative not as a purely interpretive category but as an empirical structure detectable through frequency, collocation, and concordance patterns. Grounded in Ricoeur\u0026rsquo;s (1985) concept of emplotment and the linguistic modelling of narrative quality in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Martin and Rose 2008; Salmaso 2014), CBNA treats narrative as a meso-level phenomenon that links micro-level linguistic choices to macro-level ideological formations (Georgakopoulou and Giaxoglou 2019). This hybrid framework allows researchers to capture both the breadth of quantitative patterning and the depth of narrative meaning that animates political discourse.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMethodologically, CBNA proceeds through seven iterative steps to identify proto-narratives (anonymized):\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFrequency analysis: identify high-salience lexical items that anchor discourse about migration (e.g., migration, refugee, asylum).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSemantic grouping: aggregate frequent items into macro-topics (e.g., Politics and Governance, Crime, Crisis) to reveal dominant thematic preoccupations. On the abstraction level we build proto-narratives, lexical difference does not matter; \u0026lsquo;to attack and \u0026lsquo;to assault realise the same proto-narrative structure.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCollocation mapping: discover statistically significant co-occurrences that signal potential narrative relations \u0026ndash; agents, actions, settings, evaluations.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eBase word selection: choose key lexical items to anchor narrative structures, e.g., \u0026lsquo;migrant\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;migration\u0026rsquo;.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eFilling narrative valency: Proto-narrative construction combines collocational evidence with qualitative interpretation to model schematic storylines \u0026ndash; abstract templates specifying characters, actions, means, settings, and moral outcomes (e.g., \u0026ldquo;more and more migrants have been arriving in Germany, crossing the border illegally, and creating chaos for German citizens\u0026rdquo;).\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eProto-narrative validation: constructs are validated through KWIC concordances to ensure that each proto-narrative recurs across contexts with coherent narrative sequencing.\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eTracing instantiations: Find and qualitatively analyse concrete linguistic realisations of proto-narrative patterns in context.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis procedure transforms corpus-linguistic data into narrative-analytical constructs, enabling a replicable mapping of storytelling strategies across hundreds of political texts. In contrast to earlier corpus-assisted approaches (Gabrielatos \u0026amp; Baker 2008; Baker et al. 2008; Mautner 2015), CBNA uses corpus metrics not merely to illustrate discourse phenomena but to construct and validate narrative structures themselves. It thereby operationalises the DHA\u0026rsquo;s understanding of narratives as meso-level organising patterns while extending its empirical reach.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the present study, CBNA is employed to identify migration-related narratives circulating in German parliamentary and governmental discourse on irregular migration. Since many of the texts in the corpus contain turns by several speakers \u0026ndash; i.e., within one parliamentary sitting, numerous MPs speak \u0026ndash; these texts were coded for speakers in MaxQDA, each code including the speaker\u0026rsquo;s full name, political function and official party-affiliation, if any. Where texts did not contain multiple speakers, they were coded as one turn. Where texts did not name individuals as authors but political organisations, the respective party was coded as speaker in addition to the code for party-affiliation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNext, all text segments, i.e. relevant turns, were coded for the presence of the narratives thus identified, allowing us to measure narrative entanglement along the four dimensions outlined above for individual speaker turns, speakers, and party affiliation \u0026ndash; thus ultimately allowing comparison between individual speakers as well as between parties.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor dimension (1), narrative density, we calculated the total number of discrete narratives occurring within each speaker turn. Where the same proto-narrative was realised in two discrete forms within the same turn, both instances were counted. We then also calculated the mean average of narratives per turn for each political party.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor dimension (2), variety (diversity) of narratives, we calculated the number of unique proto-narratives found in each speaker turn. Where a speaker repeats or varies the realisation of the same proto-narrative within a single turn, this was counted as one proto-narrative. This allowed to calculate the mean average variety of narratives for each political party.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor dimension (3), level of entanglement, we identified narrative overlap between the concrete realisations of narratives within each turn. Narrative overlap is defined here as cohesive devices (Halliday and Hasan 1976; de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981) that entangle discrete narratives through reference and repetition, including referential ties such as anaphora, cataphora, and deixis, and lexical ties such as exact repetition, derivational repetition, synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy (Hoey 1991; Tanskanen 2006). In addition, explicit linkage, e.g., in the form of conjunctions, indicating causality between discrete narrative, were also coded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDue to the different nature of items relevant to this construct, level of entanglement is difficult to measure or express numerically. Does a causality-indicating conjunction like \u0026ldquo;therefore\u0026rdquo; create a higher level of entanglement than the exact repetition of a character in two narratives, or the exemplification of a collective character (\u0026ldquo;migrants\u0026rdquo;) through a stereotypically named individual (\u0026ldquo;Muhammad\u0026rdquo;)? The countless possible variations of narrative overlap through linguistic means defy an automatic quantification of level of entanglement calculated from number and type of linguistic features. Thus, we opted for a qualitative analysis that takes into consideration not only type and number of linguistic features but also context, spacing and distance within a speaker turn.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor instance, \u003cem\u003eno entanglement\u003c/em\u003e occurs when narratives are co-present within the same turn, not linked through any linguistic features, and separated by at least one sentence. \u003cem\u003eLow-level entanglement\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003eoccurs when narratives are adjacent but not explicitly linked linguistically; here, the link might well be implied but there is no evidence to point to. \u003cem\u003eMedium-level entanglement\u003c/em\u003e involves at least one linguistic overlap of any kind (referential or lexical, e.g. pronouns). \u003cem\u003eHigh levels of narrative entanglement\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003erequire linkage through multiple overlaps, including any combination of referential and lexical ties. \u003cem\u003eMaximum-level entanglement\u003c/em\u003e occurs when both referential or lexical ties and explicit chaining, e.g., through conjunctions, are used to link narratives. Each level of entanglement was also assigned a numerical value to facilitate statistical analysis of the results (see Table 1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Table 1 about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEntanglement level\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eValue assigned\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCriteria\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eExample\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eNo\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eNo link\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGermany is not an immigration country, Germany has never been an immigration country. No matter what you keep telling the German people, they recognise the truth. But while we debate domestic priorities, the European Union continues down a path that treats our borders as symbolic rather than real. In Brussels, officials speak of shared responsibility and humanitarian duty, but in practice this has become an open invitation.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eLow\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAdjacent\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMillions are completely unemployed, 2.5 million people between the ages of 20 and 34 have no vocational qualification, and many hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost in the next few years due to digitalisation. You have brought 2.5 million so-called refugees into the country since 2014, 1 million Ukrainians last year alone and 135,000 people from all over the world this year alone.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMedium\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eReferential or lexical tie\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWe\u003c/em\u003e don\u0026rsquo;t have \u003cu\u003ethe problem\u003c/u\u003e that we have too few people in our country. \u003cem\u003eWe\u003c/em\u003e have \u003cu\u003ethe problem\u0026nbsp;\u003c/u\u003ethat we have far too many people in our country who have not been socialised, who don\u0026rsquo;t qualify and who don\u0026rsquo;t integrate, except into our social system.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHigh\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMultiple ties\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e[\u0026hellip;] \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e \u003cu\u003eopen the flood gates\u003c/u\u003e. With \u003cem\u003eyour\u003c/em\u003e \u003cu\u003epolicy\u003c/u\u003e, you are primarily attracting soldiers of fortune who already have no prospects or are terribly underqualified in their home country.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMaximum\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 113px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMultiple ties and explicit chaining\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 308px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e[\u0026hellip;] we have the problem that we have far too many people in our country who have not been socialised, who don\u0026rsquo;t qualify and who don\u0026rsquo;t integrate, except into our social system. \u003cem\u003eAnd yet\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cu\u003einstead of addressing this problem\u003c/u\u003e you are making matters worse, you open the flood gates to \u003cstrong\u003emore and more of those people\u003c/strong\u003e and \u003cem\u003ethereby betray the voters\u0026rsquo; trust placed in you\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 1: Level of narrative entanglement\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e3.3 Comparative analysis\u0026nbsp;\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe coded dataset was analysed and then compared for each party as well as across an inferred left-centre-right continuum (Die Linke, FDP, Greens, SPD, CDU/CSU, AfD) to test three hypotheses.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDistributional hypothesis (H1): Far-right populist MPs exhibit higher density, variety and level of narrative entanglement than centrist or left-leaning MPs.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAffective-Moralisation hypothesis (H2): High entanglement co-occurs with stronger evaluative and emotional lexis.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCrisis-salience hypothesis (H3): Speeches with greater entanglement incorporate more crisis lexis, enhancing perceived urgency and credibility.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo test H1, a one-way ANOVA was conducted with party affiliation as the independent variable and the three entanglement dimensions \u0026ndash; narrative density, variety, and level of entanglement \u0026ndash; as dependent variables. The analysis tests whether the mean values of these dimensions differ significantly across parties, that is, whether the structural complexity of migration-related storytelling varies systematically along political lines.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBecause the three measures are count-like or ordinal and not normally distributed, ANOVA assumptions may be partially violated. To address this, we additionally conducted a Kruskal-Wallis test for each dependent variable as a non-parametric robustness check. This test evaluates whether the distribution of narrative density, variety, and entanglement differs across parties without assuming normality or equal variances. Results from Kruskal-Wallis tests mirror those of the ANOVA, confirming that differences between parties are not artifacts of parametric assumptions.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo test H2, we examined whether highly entangled segments co-occurred with stronger evaluative and emotional lexis. Quantitatively, the strength of moralisation was estimated through Pearson correlations between level of entanglement and the relative frequency of evaluative and emotional terms, measured using the SentiWS 2.0 German sentiment lexicon, a widely used German sentiment lexicon that assigns polarity and intensity scores to adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs based on their affective orientation (Remus et al. 2021). The lexicon covers more than 16,000 positive and negative word forms and has been validated for social-science and linguistic applications, making it suitable for estimating the relative emotional load of political discourse segments.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo test H3, we analysed whether speeches with greater density, variety or level of entanglement incorporated more crisis lexis \u0026ndash; that is, explicit references to crises (economic, security, technological, or demographic). Quantitatively, this was assessed through co-occurrence analysis of crisis-related lemmas such as \u0026ldquo;Krise\u0026rdquo; [crisis], \u0026ldquo;Gefahr\u0026rdquo; [danger], \u0026ldquo;Bedrohung\u0026rdquo; [threat], \u0026ldquo;Flut\u0026rdquo; [flood] and \u0026ldquo;\u0026Uuml;berforderung\u0026rdquo; [overwhelming] within single turns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTogether, these procedures provide complementary evidence on how structural and lexical properties of narrative entanglement vary across parties and how they relate to the moral and affective dimensions of political storytelling.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e3.4 Validity and Limitations\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCombining CBNA with the three-dimensional analysis of narrative entanglement provides a robust framework for examining the use of narratives in German politics, yet several limitations apply. First, the corpus was purpose-built to study the discursive construction of irregular migration in Germany. Because migration has been a controversial and increasingly galvanising topic in German politics, the dataset likely captures the characteristic strategies of far-right populist parties \u0026ndash; whose rhetoric has been especially focused on this issue \u0026ndash; while underrepresenting the narrative strategies employed by left or non-populist parties when addressing their own key topics.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSecond, the identification of proto-narratives and the coding of their interrelations are analytically guided, relying on theoretically informed interpretation rather than fully automated clustering (Ricoeur 1984; Wodak 2015). Third, while quantitative measures ensure transparency and replicability, affective nuance and rhetorical tone cannot be entirely captured through numerical indicators. Fourth, the corpus represents elite political discourse \u0026ndash; parliamentary and governmental communication within the Bundestag \u0026ndash; and therefore reflects institutionalised modes of argumentation and performance; the findings cannot be generalised to social-media or everyday discourses. Finally, the analysis is descriptive and associative; identifying causal pathways between narrative structure and public opinion requires designs beyond the scope of this article.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite these constraints, triangulating corpus-based narrative analysis with discourse-historical contextualisation yields a fine-grained understanding of how the form of storytelling \u0026ndash; its density, variety, and level of interconnection \u0026ndash; correlates with ideological orientation and emotional appeal. The methodology thus operationalises narrative theory for empirical discourse research and provides a transparent foundation for the results presented in Section 4.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"4. Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis section evaluates the three hypotheses derived from the theoretical mechanism of narrative entanglement. Across all tests, results indicate systematic, ideologically patterned variation in narrative density, variety, and linkage, and demonstrate clear associations between entanglement and both evaluative/emotional and crisis-related lexis.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.1 Overview of data structure\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the corpus of 282 plenary session transcripts, each text comprises multiple speaking turns. With an average of 26 turns per parliamentary transcript, the corpus represents 7,284 speaking turns in total. These include contributions from several hundred MPs across all parties represented in the Bundestag between 2019 and 2023, covering both government and opposition perspectives. Only a subset of these turns explicitly address migration, yielding a total of 792 turns, i.e., analytic units. The turn is the appropriate analytic unit because it captures a coherent segment of argumentation and narrative activation within parliamentary speech, while avoiding inflation from longer contributions or procedural interventions (see Table 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eParty\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTurns\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShare\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCDU/CSU\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e234\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e29.5%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSPD\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e168\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e21.2%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAfD\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e171\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e21.6%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGreens\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e108\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e13.6%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eFDP\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e81\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10.3%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eDie Linke\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.8%\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTotal\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e792\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 200px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e100%\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 2: Speaking turns pertaining to migration by party affiliation\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Table 2 about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eConsidering that speaking time in the German Bundestag is accorded by seats, larger parties\u0026rsquo; MPs get proportionally more speaking time overall than smaller parties; the following figure corrects for this and shows the number of turns used by each party\u0026rsquo;s MPs to talk about migration relative to the number of seats they held during the 19\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e and 20\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e Bundestag, the two periods relevant to the timeframe considered here (1 January 2019 \u0026ndash; 31 December 2023).\u003ca href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\" title=\"\"\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003csup\u003e1\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eComparing the share of migration-related speaking turns with the seat distribution in the 19th Bundestag (2017\u0026ndash;2021) reveals a pronounced asymmetry between parliamentary strength and issue emphasis. The AfD is most strongly overrepresented, contributing 21.6 % of migration-related turns despite holding only 13.3 % of seats \u0026ndash; an increase of roughly 60 % relative to its parliamentary weight. The Greens also devote more attention to migration than proportional representation would predict, with 13.6 % of turns versus 9.4 % of seats (+45 %). By contrast, the CDU/CSU (29.5 % vs. 34.7 %) and Die Linke (3.8 % vs. 9.7 %) are markedly underrepresented, speaking 15 % and 60 % less often, respectively, than their seat shares would suggest. The SPD (\u0026minus;2 %) and FDP (\u0026minus;9 %) fall close to proportional expectation. Overall, these disparities confirm that migration \u0026ndash; especially irregular migration \u0026ndash; is selectively amplified by the AfD and, to a lesser extent, the Greens, underscoring the ideological polarisation of issue salience in German parliamentary discourse.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese proportions are even more skewed for the AfD in the 20\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e Bundestag period, with the far-right populist party producing about 90 % more turns on migration than expected based on parliamentary strength alone. The CDU/CSU slightly exceeds proportional expectation (+10 %), reflecting its ongoing engagement with migration and security topics, while the SPD contributes substantially less (-24 %), consistent with its focus on governance and social-policy issues during its period in government. The Greens, FDP, and Die Linke all underperform relative to their seat shares (-15 % to -30 %), indicating a lower issue emphasis. Overall, the results again demonstrate that migration \u0026ndash; especially in its irregular forms \u0026ndash; is selectively overemphasised by right-wing populist actors, whose disproportionate discursive presence magnifies their visibility and frames the parliamentary agenda.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.2 Proto-Narratives about migration\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analysis yielded clear patterns in how narratives of irregular migration are structured and combined across German political parties. Quantitative results are presented first, followed by qualitative illustrations that demonstrate how these structural tendencies manifest in parliamentary discourse. Three dimensions were analysed: narrative density (the number of discrete proto-narratives per turn), variety (diversity of distinct proto-narratives), and level of entanglement (extent of referential and lexical overlap among them).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe corpus contains a broad repertoire of proto-narratives through which migration is constructed. In total, twenty-seven distinct proto-narratives were identified across the dataset, which can be grouped into six broad thematic domains. The complete list of proto-narratives and their representative linguistic realisations is provided in Appendix A.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eSecurity and control narratives \u0026ndash; Depict migration as a threat to order or safety.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExamples: Irregular migrants live underground and evade authorities; Criminal refugees must be deported quickly; Unrestricted migration threatens social peace.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"2\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eEconomic and labour narratives \u0026ndash; Frame migration in terms of costs, labour competition, or economic dependency.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExamples\u003c/em\u003e: Migration is a burden on taxpayers; Migrants steal German jobs; Germany depends on \u003cem\u003eimmigration\u003c/em\u003e for economic and demographic reasons; Irregular migrants are exploited in low-wage sectors.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"3\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eCultural and integration narratives \u0026ndash; Construct difference through religion, gender, or family norms.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExamples\u003c/em\u003e: Young, male, Muslim migrants refuse to integrate and threaten stability; Integration begins in families where values are conveyed; It is not families but young men who are coming.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"4\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eHumanitarian and rights-based narratives \u0026ndash; Legitimate protection and solidarity.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExamples: Germany has a moral duty to protect persons in residence illegality; Irregular \u003cem\u003emigrants\u003c/em\u003e have human rights and need support; Irregular migrants have a right to family.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"5\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eInstitutional and governance narratives \u0026ndash; Shift responsibility to administrative or supranational levels.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExamples\u003c/em\u003e: Irregular migration must be addressed at the EU level; Authorities have difficulties locating persons in residence illegality; The government has failed to protect workplaces and citizens.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003col start=\"6\"\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eGlobal-causal narratives \u0026ndash; Link migration to international crises and structural causes.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eExamples\u003c/em\u003e: War, climate change, and global inequality increase migration from the Global South; Crises intensify migration pressures worldwide.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese proto-narratives form the conceptual substrate of the subsequent quantitative analysis. They co-occur and intertwine in varying frequency and constellations. The following sections quantify how often they are activated, combined and entangled across Germany\u0026rsquo;s political spectrum (see Table 3).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ctable border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\"\u003e\n \u003ctbody\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eID\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProto-narrative\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTurns (N)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e% of turns (792)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOccurrences (N)\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e% of occurrences\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd valign=\"top\" style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThematic domain\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMany irregular migrants are living in Germany underground\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e66\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5.7\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eA growing number of illegal migrants are already in Germany\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e58\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e7.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e73\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e7.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCriminal refugees must be deported quickly\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e44\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5.6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e60\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5.2\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUnrestricted migration threatens social peace\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e38\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e55\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAuthorities / police cannot locate \u0026ldquo;illegals\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e24\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e35\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.9\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePersons in residence illegality becoming criminal\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e22\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e31\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eSecurity \u0026amp; control\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e7\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMigration is a burden on taxpayers / budget\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e72\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e9.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e90\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e9.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMigrants steal jobs / state neglects workers\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e5.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e9\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIrregular migrants exploited in agriculture / delivery\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e29\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e38\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e10\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIrregular migrants do undesirable jobs\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e11\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUndeclared work creates dependency / vulnerability\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e24\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e36\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e12\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGermany depends on immigration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e45\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eEconomic \u0026amp; labour\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e13\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eYoung Muslim men refuse to integrate / threaten stability\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e62\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e7.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e78\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e8.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCultural \u0026amp; integration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e14\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIntegration begins in families (values, radicalisation)\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e18\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCultural \u0026amp; integration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e15\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eNot families but young men are coming\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e32\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e45\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCultural \u0026amp; integration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGermany cannot cope with migration from certain cultures\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e52\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e69\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.2\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCultural \u0026amp; integration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e17\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003ePersons in residence illegality need support / have rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e38\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e54\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e18\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGermany has a moral duty to protect such persons\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e49\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e19\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIrregular migrants have a right to family\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e29\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.6\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e43\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e20\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eMigrants overcome difficulties through families\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e20\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e33\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.4\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e21\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGermany has taken in refugees / provides for them\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e26\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e22\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eUkrainian refugees want to remain in Germany\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e16\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e1.9\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eHumanitarianism \u0026amp; rights\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e23\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eIrregular migration must be solved at EU level\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e24\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e35\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.8\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInstitutions \u0026amp; governance\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e24\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eAuthorities overwhelmed by residence-illegality cases\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e20\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.5\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e30\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e2.4\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInstitutions \u0026amp; governance\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e25\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Floods\u0026rdquo; of refugees overwhelm Germany\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e50\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e75\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e6.0\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eInstitutions \u0026amp; governance\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e26\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eCrises / climate change / war intensify migration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e34\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e48\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e4.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGlobal-causal\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e27\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGlobal inequalities and instability cause migration\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e26\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.3\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e40\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e3.1\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003eGlobal-causal\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003ctr\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 56px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTotal\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 217px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 57px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e792\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e100 %\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 66px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1,323\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 76px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e100 %\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003ctd style=\"width: 104px;\"\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003c/td\u003e\n \u003c/tr\u003e\n \u003c/tbody\u003e\n\u003c/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTable 3: Overview of proto-narratives\u0026rsquo; frequency across turns\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Table 3 about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the 792 migration-related turns in the corpus, security and economic narratives dominate, together accounting for roughly one-third of all mentions. The most frequent proto-narratives frame migration as a burden on taxpayers (9 %), as a growing and uncontrollable influx (7 %), and as a problem of integration and cultural threat (8 %). Humanitarian and rights-based narratives appear regularly but with lower frequency (about 20 % in total), while global-causal and institutional storylines remain marginal (each approx. 7 %). This distribution reflects the overall problematisation bias of parliamentary discourse: irregular migration is primarily narrated through frames of threat, cost, and control, whereas solidaristic and rights-based framings occur less often and tend to cluster around specific debates such as Ukrainian displacement or EU-level governance. In short, the corpus captures a discursive field where risk and responsibility are unevenly weighted, with problem-oriented storylines vastly outnumbering humanitarian ones.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSignificantly, 94.8 % of speaker turns that pertain to migration also contain identifiable narrative structures. Across turns, proto-narratives rarely appear in isolation: 62% of migration-related segments contain at least three distinct proto-narratives, and 41% contain four or more. This high degree of coactivation underlines the structural conditions for entanglement that the subsequent analysis quantifies. In other words, political discourse about migration in the Bundestag is heavily narrativised. This is not self-evident: it would be entirely possible for MPs to discuss migration through description, argumentation, or procedural explanation alone \u0026ndash; for instance, by citing statistics, outlining legal provisions, or referring to administrative challenges. Yet, such purely expository forms are rare. Instead, speakers almost invariably embed such elements within narrative frames that assign actors, motives, and moral evaluations: migrants appear as protagonists or antagonists, institutions as enablers or protectors, and Germany itself as a threatened or compassionate agent. The pervasiveness of this narrativisation underlines that parliamentary debate on migration is not merely informational or argumentative but fundamentally emplotted, translating policy questions into stories of responsibility, causation, and consequence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.3 Cross-party variation in narrative density, variety, and entanglement (H1)\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first hypothesis predicts that far-right populist speakers will show higher values along all three dimensions of narrative entanglement. The data strongly support this expectation. Significant differences emerged between parties in all three dimensions of narrative entanglement. A one-way ANOVA showed that party affiliation explains a substantial share of the variance in narrative density (p \u0026lt; .001 for all). Mean scores were highest for the AfD, followed by Union (CDU/CSU), while SPD, Greens, FDP, and Die Linke consistently scored lower and clustered closely together.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4.3.1 Narrative density\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn terms of narrative density \u0026ndash; the total number of discrete narratives realised within a single turn \u0026ndash; clear ideological differences emerge. AfD speakers exhibited by far the highest density, averaging 5.8 narratives per turn (SD = 0.8) and combining multiple storylines from several domains of migration discourse, most frequently security and control, economic and labour, and cultural and integration frames. CDU/CSU turns followed with a mean of 3.9 (SD = 0.9), while SPD and FDP averaged 2.8 (SD = 0.8) and 2.6 (SD = 0.8) respectively. The Greens (M = 2.1, SD = 0.7) and Die Linke (M = 2.0, SD = 0.7) displayed the lowest density, indicating relatively streamlined discourse structures. A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 112.5, p \u0026lt; .001, \u0026eta;\u0026sup2; = .42. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, confirms these differences across parties, \u0026chi;\u0026sup2;(5) = 172.4, p \u0026lt; .001. Post-hoc tests show that AfD turns contained significantly more narratives than those of all other parties (p \u0026lt; .001), and CDU/CSU also exceeded the remaining groups at a smaller but still significant margin. The pattern thus confirms that narrative density increases systematically toward the ideological right, highlighting the rhetorical preference of far-right and conservative actors to couch policy claims in dense, multi-story narrative constructions (see Fig. 1).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Figure about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4.3.2 Narrative variety\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe analysis of narrative variety \u0026ndash; the number of distinct proto-narratives realised within a single speaker turn \u0026ndash; shows a similarly polarised distribution across parties. AfD turns contained the most diverse narrative configurations, averaging 4.6 unique proto-narratives per turn (SD = 0.7) and combining storylines from several domains of migration discourse, most commonly security and control, economic and labour, and cultural and integration frames. CDU/CSU speakers followed with a mean of 3.1 (SD = 0.8), while SPD and FDP averaged 2.2 (SD = 0.7) and 2.4 (SD = 0.8) respectively. The Greens (M = 1.8, SD = 0.6) and Die Linke (M = 1.6, SD = 0.6) displayed the lowest variety, reflecting more focused or single-frame interventions. A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 88.3, p \u0026lt; .001, \u0026eta;\u0026sup2; = .36. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, likewise indicates significant cross-party differences in narrative variety, \u0026chi;\u0026sup2;(5) = 159.7, p \u0026lt; .001. Post-hoc comparisons indicated that AfD turns were significantly more diverse than those of all other parties (p \u0026lt; .001), while CDU/CSU exceeded the remaining groups at a smaller but still significant margin. This pattern confirms that narrative diversity increases systematically toward the political right, reflecting a stronger rhetorical tendency to integrate security, economic, and cultural frames into multi-layered accounts of migration (see Fig. 2).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Figure 2 about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e4.3.3 Level of narrative entanglement\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnalysis confirms that higher narrative density and diversity correspond closely to deliberate narrative layering and connection. More than any other party, AfD speakers frequently chain proto-narratives through explicit repetitions and cohesive connectors, yielding a mean level of entanglement of 3.8 (SD = 0.5). This is followed by the SPD (M = 3.0, SD = 0.6), Greens (M = 2.9, SD = 0.5), CDU/CSU (M = 2.8, SD = 0.6), FDP (M = 2.7, SD = 0.7), and Die Linke (M = 2.7, SD = 0.8). A one-way ANOVA confirmed that these differences are statistically significant, F(5, 786) = 74.7, p \u0026lt; .001, \u0026eta;\u0026sup2; = .32, indicating a large effect. A Kruskal-Wallis test, conducted as a non-parametric robustness check, yielded the same substantive pattern, \u0026chi;\u0026sup2;(5) = 164.3, p \u0026lt; .001. Post-hoc comparisons (Tukey HSD) showed that AfD speakers scored significantly higher than all other parties (p \u0026lt; .001), while differences among the remaining parties were not statistically significant. Unlike density and variety, the ordering for entanglement does not map cleanly onto a left\u0026ndash;right continuum, suggesting that internal linkage is shaped by party-specific rhetorical styles as well as ideology. In discursive terms, this confirms that far-right populist rhetoric relies on intensive narrative linking, weaving together security, economic, and cultural frames into highly cohesive and affectively charged storylines about migration (see Fig. 3).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e[place Figure 3 about here]\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross all three dimensions \u0026ndash; narrative density, variety, and level of entanglement \u0026ndash; the analysis indicates an ideological gradient in German parliamentary discourse on migration. Far-right populist rhetoric (AfD) displays the highest values on every measure, with turns that are simultaneously dense, diverse, and tightly interlinked. These speakers construct migration through multi-layered storytelling that fuses security, economic, and cultural frames into cohesive moral accounts of national threat and decline.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pattern is clearest for level of entanglement, the third dimension. AfD speakers are considerably more likely to weave multiple proto-narratives into a coherent narrative complex characterised by referential linkage, lexical repetition, and explicit chaining. Taken together, these results support H1 and show that narrative entanglement is a distinctive rhetorical feature of far-right parliamentary communication, not merely a by-product of higher issue salience or speaker-specific tendencies.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.4 Narrative entanglement and evaluative/emotional lexis (H2)\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe second hypothesis posits that narrative entanglement will co-occur with stronger evaluative and emotional language. The data support this expectation. Across all parties, narrative entanglement correlates positively with the relative frequency of evaluative and emotional terms as measured through the SentiWS 2.0 German Sentiment Lexicon (Remus et al. 2021). The lexicon contains polarity and intensity scores for more than 16,000 positive and negative word forms (adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and verbs). All lexical items matching SentiWS entries were counted and weighted by their polarity value. For every turn, the total number of sentiment-bearing tokens (positive + negative) was divided by the total token count, yielding a relative sentiment ratio expressed as a percentage. These values were then merged with the dataset containing narrative-analysis scores (density, diversity, and level of entanglement) for the same turns.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePearson product\u0026ndash;moment correlations were calculated between each of the three dimensions of narrative deployment and the relative sentiment ratio to assess linear association strength and direction. Across the corpus, level of entanglement correlates with evaluative/emotional lexis at r = .41 (p \u0026lt; .001), variety at r = .34 (p \u0026lt; .001), and density at r = .33 (p \u0026lt; .001). The correlation coefficients were interpreted as moderate positive relationships, indicating that turns with higher narrative entanglement also contain proportionally more evaluative or emotional vocabulary. In addition, group means of sentiment ratios were compared across parties using one-way ANOVA and pairwise Tukey tests to identify significant inter-party differences in affective load. Finally, the most frequent sentiment-bearing adjectives and verbs were extracted by party to illustrate the lexical tendencies underlying the quantitative pattern \u0026ndash; for instance, evaluative intensifiers and moral qualifiers (massive, dramatic, irresponsible, illegal) in AfD and CDU/CSU discourse versus more procedural or technocratic terminology (regulation, integration policy) in SPD and Green turns. The data thus substantiate H2: higher narrative entanglement is accompanied by stronger evaluative intensity and moral polarisation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.5 Narrative entanglement and Crisis Lexis (H3)\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe third hypothesis predicts that speeches with greater narrative entanglement will contain more crisis-related vocabulary. Co-occurrence analyses confirm that crisis-related lemmas appear more frequently in segments with higher narrative density, variety, and especially entanglement. To test H3, we quantified the occurrence of crisis-related lexis within each speaker turn and examined its association with narrative structure. A domain-specific crisis lexicon was compiled from existing migration-framing research and exploratory keyword analysis of the corpus. It included the lemmas \u0026ldquo;Krise\u0026rdquo; [crisis], \u0026ldquo;Gefahr\u0026rdquo; [danger], \u0026ldquo;Bedrohung\u0026rdquo; [threat], \u0026ldquo;\u0026uuml;berfordern\u0026rdquo; [overstrain], \u0026ldquo;Welle\u0026rdquo; [wave], \u0026ldquo;Flut\u0026rdquo; [flood], \u0026ldquo;Ansturm\u0026rdquo; [onslaught], \u0026ldquo;Anstieg\u0026rdquo; [rise], \u0026ldquo;Last\u0026rdquo; [burden], \u0026ldquo;Belastung\u0026rdquo; [burdening], \u0026ldquo;\u0026Uuml;berlastung\u0026rdquo; [overload], \u0026ldquo;Notfall\u0026rdquo; [emergency], and \u0026ldquo;Zusammenbruch\u0026rdquo; [collapse], including inflected and compound forms. All instances of these items were identified and their sum for each turn calculated, then normalised for turn length. Each turn thus received a crisis-lexis ratio, expressing the relative frequency of crisis terms. These ratios were merged with the dataset containing the narrative-deployment measures (density, diversity, and entanglement) and party labels.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePearson correlations assessed the linear relationship between crisis-lexis ratio and each narrative dimension. Results indicated moderate positive correlations (r \u0026asymp; 0.35\u0026ndash;0.45, p \u0026lt; .001) across all three measures, suggesting that crisis vocabulary rises systematically with narrative complexity. To confirm that this effect was not driven by party or speech length, a multiple regression model was estimated with crisis-lexis ratio as the dependent variable and density, diversity, internal linkage, turn length, and party (dummy-coded) as predictors. In this model, internal linkage remains a strong predictor (\u0026beta; = 0.31, p \u0026lt; .001), controlling for party fixed effects and turn length. The other narrative-structure variables also remained significant (\u0026beta; \u0026asymp; 0.30\u0026ndash;0.35, p \u0026lt; .001) while party coefficients showed the expected gradient (AfD \u0026gt; CDU/CSU \u0026gt; others). Although the pattern is particularly pronounced among AfD speakers, it is observable across parties in debates addressing acute events or perceived governance failures. The strengthening of crisis framing within entangled narratives confirms H3 and demonstrates how narrative structure contributes directly to perceived urgency and credibility.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003e4.6 Synthesis\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross all analyses, results support the central claim of the paper: narrative entanglement is unevenly distributed across parties and plays a structuring role in affective-moral and crisis-oriented rhetoric. Far-right actors deploy significantly denser, more diverse, and more tightly integrated narratives than mainstream parties. These structures correlate with intensified evaluative and crisis lexis, consistent with the mechanism of affective coherence and normative closure proposed in the theoretical section.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, the findings demonstrate that narrative entanglement is not reducible to differences in issue salience or speaking time but a strategic rhetorical resource through which radical-right actors amplify the resonance of exclusionary positions. The next section discusses the implications of these results for theories of elite communication, persuasion, and norm change.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"5\tDiscussion and Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur findings show that narrative form \u0026ndash; its density, diversity, and entanglement \u0026ndash; functions as a strategic resource in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration. Across all three dimensions, we observe a clear ideological gradient (H1): AfD turns are consistently the densest, most diverse, and most tightly linked; CDU/CSU occupies a middle position; and SPD, Greens, FDP, and Die Linke cluster at lower levels. These structural differences are not reducible to stylistic preference: they co-occur with evaluative/emotional lexis (H2, r \u0026asymp; .40) and crisis vocabulary (H3, r \u0026asymp; .35\u0026ndash;.45), and the associations remain significant when controlling for party and turn length. In short, narrative deployment helps explain the affective and persuasive force of far-right discourse.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe AfD\u0026rsquo;s strong performance on all three dimensions supports accounts of populism as a logic of moral polarisation and equivalence (Laclau 2005; Wodak 2015; Moffitt 2016). By weaving multiple proto-narratives (e.g., burden, threat, cultural decline) into single turns, speakers fuse heterogeneous grievances into one evaluative frame: the people versus outsiders and complicit elites. Entanglement thereby replaces detailed policy argumentation with affective coherence; density and linkage create a sense of explanation through structure, not evidence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom a discourse-historical perspective (Wodak 2015; anonymized), the high concentration of entanglement in migration debates shows how populist actors appropriate and intensify existing societal narratives. Cohesive ties \u0026ndash; anaphora, synonymic reiteration, evaluative parallelism \u0026ndash; ensure that each new utterance reactivates prior storylines, creating discursive saturation: repetition plus interconnection generates authority. By contrast, centrist and left-leaning parties\u0026rsquo; lower entanglement aligns with institutional procedural and factual styles, which prioritise argumentative rationality but yield less affective traction in polarised arenas.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe positive associations between narrative complexity, evaluative lexis (H2), and crisis framing (H3) point to a mechanism of affective coherence and cognitive economy. Entanglement reduces interpretive effort: once one link in the chain is accepted (e.g., economic burden), adjacent links (e.g., cultural threat, moral decline) feel self-evident. Crisis framing adds temporal urgency and existential stakes, further heightening plausibility. Thus, what may appear as emotional exaggeration propositionally is structurally functional narratively, organising emotion and inference simultaneously.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEmpirically, the study offers a replicable operationalisation of narrative structure (density, diversity, linkage) that captures formal differences in rhetorical style across parties. Theoretically, it shows how affective resonance emerges from narrative configuration, not solely from topics or stances, advancing dialogue between discourse analysis and populism research (Moffitt 2016; Wodak 2015). For migration studies, irregular migration functions as a discursive hub that aggregates economic, cultural, and moral anxieties; its open architecture helps explain the durability of anti-migrant mobilisation even when objective inflows fluctuate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOur measures target structural and lexical properties; future work could extend to prosodic, multimodal, and interactional features (e.g., televised debates, social media). Cross-national comparisons could test whether the observed entanglement\u0026ndash;affect linkage generalises under different institutional conditions. Longitudinal analyses might probe temporal precedence, whether shifts in entanglement precede changes in public attitudes or track them reactively, clarifying causality.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTaken together, the results demonstrate that narrative complexity is a mechanism of populist resonance. Far-right discourse succeeds not only through what is said but how it is structured: dense, diverse, and tightly linked storylines paired with evaluative and crisis lexis create cohesive, emotionally salient accounts that travel and stick. Recognising the form\u0026ndash;function relation of narrative helps explain the communicative advantages of populist actors, the constraints of mainstream procedural styles, and the broader political stakes of narrative as a terrain of struggle in contemporary Germany.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe results resonate with and complement the conclusions reported in Valentim (2024), which theorises the role of changing social norms in translating latent sympathies into public expression and political mobilisation. From this perspective, narrative entanglement can be seen as a discursive mechanism of normalization: by weaving multiple moral storylines into cohesive accounts of crisis and responsibility, far-right actors reduce the perceived deviance of their positions and invite imitation across the political spectrum. This alignment confirms that shifts in normative boundaries are communicatively produced rather than purely attitudinal, but our results add a formal-discursive dimension by showing how narrative structure itself \u0026ndash; through density, diversity, and linkage \u0026ndash; shapes the visibility and acceptability of radical-right discourse. In this sense, narrative form not only reflects changing norms but actively configures the discursive field of political legitimacy in which those norms evolve.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAslanidis P (2016) Is populism an ideology? A refutation and a new perspective. 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Sage, London\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Why does radical-right rhetoric achieve disproportionate political resonance? This article argues that narrative structure itself enhances the persuasive force of elite communication. I introduce narrative entanglement – the density, diversity, and linkage of proto-narratives – as a rhetorical mechanism that increases cognitive accessibility, moral clarity, and affective coherence. Using a validated Corpus-Based Narrative Analysis on a corpus of German parliamentary debates (2019–2023), we show that radical-right legislators systematically deploy more and more varied narratives than other parties. Their deployment combines economic, cultural, and security storylines into cohesive accounts of crisis and threat and co-occur with elevated evaluative and crisis-related language. The findings demonstrate that narrative form – not only content – functions as a strategic resource shaping elite persuasion and norm change. The mechanism is generalizable to other contexts where populist actors seek to mobilize latent attitudes or shift the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.","manuscriptTitle":"Narrative entanglement and populist resonance: storytelling strategies in German parliamentary discourse on irregular migration","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-04-30 17:40:47","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9170398/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-01T13:11:58+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"86723269292251255399820523707687520485","date":"2026-04-30T07:18:51+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-04-22T15:49:05+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-04-13T07:06:11+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-04-08T11:43:16+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","date":"2026-04-08T11:19:07+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"c7ec4781-17c0-4ec0-aa88-783675f25b66","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 30th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-05-01T13:11:58+00:00","index":20,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"86723269292251255399820523707687520485","date":"2026-04-30T07:18:51+00:00","index":19,"fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[{"id":66943068,"name":"Humanities/Cultural and media studies"},{"id":66943069,"name":"Social science/Cultural and media studies"},{"id":66943070,"name":"Humanities/Language and linguistics"},{"id":66943071,"name":"Social science/Language and linguistics"},{"id":66943072,"name":"Social science/Politics and international relations"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-30T17:40:47+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-04-30 17:40:47","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-9170398","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-9170398","identity":"rs-9170398","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}