Political Agendas in Germany

Abstract

This chapter describes the German political system and connects its working to agenda-setting theories. Given its institutional configuration, politics and policy-making in Germany is typically described in terms of deliberation, moderation, and gridlock. We introduce six data series—public opinion, party platforms, policy processes, government speeches, parliamentary questions, bills and laws—that comprise agenda-setting in Germany. The data for these political activities are obtained from official sources. We delineate the processing and coding of these series. A brief application that examines the German reunification process illustrates the potential of the database. The illustration shows that reunification has not really been politicized but occupied considerable agenda space in government speeches and legislation.