ABSTRACT
Abstract Theory states that politicians tend to express their decisions, standpoints and behaviour in plain, simple, straightforward rhetoric. But the decision-making process might, in particular circumstances, require or take benefi t from higher levels of complexity. It is assumed that several rhetorical fi gures, such as metaphor and hyperbole, affect the level of complexity, and with that the comprehensibility, of language or rhetoric. The use of these rhetorical fi gures could be aimed at the simplifi cation of a statement or argument. Whereas this use of rhetoric for simplifi cation is regarded as a semantic psychological effort, the cognitive complexity that is put into arguing or reasoning, as measured by the integrative complexity theory, should be perceived as an effort that is put in the cognitive psychological structure of language.
