Germany

Datasets

Data sets are arranged by type. Click on a dataset name to expand its description (including date range) as well as to download a .csv of current data and a .pdf code book that documents included variables.

Please cite the data as: Christian Breunig, Benjamin Guinaudeau and Tinette Schnatterer. 2021.  Policy agendas in Germany – database and descriptive insights. The Journal of Legislative Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2021.2010395

The party manifestos data was coded by Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Isabelle Guinaudeau. When using the German manifesto data, please add the following citation:Isabelle Guinaudeau. 2015. Documentation on the Coding of German Manifestos. Unpublished - Sciences Po Bordeaux.

The data appear in August 2019.

Parliamentary & Legislative

• Bills

  The bill database comprises all bill proposals, which were introduced to parliament between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005). Adopted bills are also be found in the law database.

  
  5787 observations spanning the years 1976 to 2005
  download dataset
• Bills

  The bill database comprises all bill proposals, which were introduced between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005). Adopted bills are also be found in the law database.

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook
• Interpellations

  Parliamentary questions (minor and major interpellations) are formal request of parliament or parliamentarians to the government. Typically, opposition parties and its parliamentary members field the majority of questions. We coded each minor and major interpellation that was asked between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005).

  
  10033 observations spanning the years 1977 to 2005
  download dataset
• Interpellations

  Parliamentary questions (minor and major interpellations) are formal request of parliament or parliamentarians to the government. Typically, opposition parties and its parliamentary members field the majority of questions. We coded each minor and major interpellation that was asked between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005).

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook
• Laws

  The Law database includes all laws passed by the Bundestag between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005). Any bill that was not adopted can be found in the bill database.

  
  3137 observations spanning the years 1976 to 2005
  download dataset
• Laws

  The Law database includes all laws passed by the Bundestag between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005). Any bill that was not adopted can be found in the bill database.

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook

Prime Minister & Executive

• Government Speeches

  Government speeches constitute a non-codified but regularly employed tool at the German government's disposal for explaining its political principles and past actions as well as emphasizing its legislative intentions.

  For this database, we only considered major speeches given by the chancellor. If several government speeches were held by the chancellor the same year, the most important speech was identified. Speeches covering several topics were privileged over single issue speeches and longer speeches over shorter ones. We split each speech into quasi-sentences and then coded each quasi-sentence thematically. The data covers all speeches held between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005).

  Sentences, which do not include any policy content, were coded 99.

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook
• Government speeches

  Government speeches constitute a non-codified but regularly employed tool at the German government's disposal for explaining its political principles and past actions as well as emphasizing its legislative intentions.

  For this database, we only considered major speeches given by the chancellor. If several government speeches where held by the chancellor the same year, the most important speech was identified. Speeches covering several topics were privileged over single issue speeches and longer speeches over shorter ones. We split each speech into quasi-sentences and then coded each quasi-sentence thematically. The data covers all speeches held between the 8th and 15th legislative periods (1976-2005).

  Sentences, which do not include any policy content, were coded 99.

  
  13566 observations spanning the years 1976 to 2005
  download dataset

Political Parties

• Party Manifestos

  The Manifesto database includes the topic and subtopic for each sentence in a party platform of the major German parties from 1949 to 2013.

  Please cite the Manifesto database as follows: Isabelle Guinaudeau. 2015. Documentation on the Coding of German Manifestos. Unpublished - Sciences Po Bordeaux.

  
  53887 observations spanning the years 1949 to 2013
  download dataset
• Party Manifestos

  The Manifesto database includes the topic and subtopic for each sentence in a party platform of the major German parties from 1949 to 2013.

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook

Public Opinion & Interest Groups

• Public opinion about the ‘most important problem facing the country'

  The Most-Important-Problem (MIP) database gathers responses to the opened-question: "According to you, what is the most important problem in Germany at the moment?" Each answer was attributed to a specific CAP-subtopic. The data is aggregated at the subtopic and survey level. For each survey between 1976 and 2005, the database includes the absolute number of respondents mentioning a particular topic, the size of the surveyed sample and the corresponding share of respondents identifying the subtopic as their most important problem.

  Most data stem from Politbarometer available at the research data center of GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, but other sources of data have also been used. The following table lists all surveys beside Politbarometer used for the MIP database. Please consult the pdf about data and coding details.

  
  1168 observations spanning the years 1976 to 2005
  download dataset
• Public opinion about the ‘most important problem facing the country'

  The Most-Important-Problem (MIP) database gathers responses to the opened-question: "According to you, what is the most important problem in Germany at the moment?" Each answer was attributed to a specific CAP-subtopic. The data is aggregated at the subtopic and survey level.

  For each survey between 1976 and 2005, the database includes the absolute number of respondents mentioning a particular topic, the size of the surveyed sample and the corresponding share of respondents identifying the subtopic as their most important problem.Most data stem from Politbarometer available at the research data center of GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, but other sources of data have also been used. The following table lists all surveys beside Politbarometer used for the MIP database.

   

  Please consult the code book for details.

  
  This dataset is not available in the trends tool.
  download dataset   download codebook

download master topics codebook

Research

Explore Policy Trends

The German Policy Agendas project traces the content of political activities in Germany. The data base comprises six agendas.

Most important problem surveys (Umfragen)

Party manifestos (Parteiprogramme)

Executive speeches (Regierungserklärungen)

Parliamentary questions (Kleine und Große Anfragen)

Bill proposals (Gesetzentwürfe)

Adopted laws (Gesetze)

All data are coded for the period between 1976 and 2005 (8. to 15. legislative session of the German Parliament) so far. The data base is currently updated until 2017 (the end of the 18. Bundestag). The updated data may be obtained upon request.

All data sets are coded with the common CAP code. A version with German specific coding (e.g. on reunification) as well as a cross walk between the German code book and the common CAP code can also be obtained upon request.

The project was founded by Christian Breunig in 2009 and has received funding from the Connaught Fund at the University of Toronto, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Committee on Research (AFF) at the University of Konstanz and the German Science Foundation. The project is based at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Konstanz.

When using the data, please add the following citation:Christian Breunig and Tinette Schnatterer. 2018.  German Policy Agendas - Data Set and Descriptive Insights. Working paper - University of Konstanz.

The party manifestos data was coded by Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Isabelle Guinaudeau. When using the German manifesto data, please add the following citation:Isabelle Guinaudeau. 2015. Documentation on the Coding of German Manifestos. Unpublished - Sciences Po Bordeaux.

Principal Investigator: Christian Breunig
Location: Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of KonstanzKonstanz
Email: office.breunig@uni.kn
Downloadable Data Series: 6
Time Span: 1949-2013
Total Observations: 87,578

Sponsoring Institutions

Connaught Fund at the University of Toronto, the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Committee on Research (AFF) at the University of Konstanz and the German Science Foundation.

German Policy Agendas