German Bundestag Renomination and Legislative Activity Data 1990-2017

This dataset combines data on roll-call voting, parliamentary speeches, and questions in the German Bundestag with novel data on candidate renominations and failures. It covers the period from 1990 to 2017, investigating how selectorates punish dissent and reward activity in the mixed-member electoral system.

Use Cases

• Analyze the relationship between roll-call voting dissent and subsequent changes in candidate list positions.
• Model the probability of renomination failure based on metrics of parliamentary activity such as speech and question counts.
• Investigate temporal trends in leisure-shirking (low activity) and its correlation with district candidate selection outcomes.
• Compare selectorate behavior for list candidates versus district candidates using combined voting and activity data.

Strengths

• Covers a long temporal range of 27 years (1990-2017) of German parliamentary activity.
• Combines multiple data types: roll-call votes, speeches, questions, and renomination outcomes.
• Focuses on a novel and specific research question regarding candidate selection incentives.

Limitations

• Sample size and specific row/column counts are unknown, limiting assessment of statistical power.
• Geographic scope is limited to a single country (Germany), reducing generalizability.
• Data freshness may be a limitation as the core legislative data ends in 2017.

Provenance

Source

Harvard Dataverse, authored by David Schmuck.

Collection Method

Combined data from official parliamentary records (roll-call votes, speeches, questions) with novel renomination data.

Time Range

1990 to 2017

Freshness

The dataset record was last updated on 2026-01-29, but the underlying data covers 1990-2017.

Geography

Germany, specifically the German Bundestag.