The E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag

Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt (& Katharina Johnsen)

Hamburg 13.01.2015

E-petitions: Different settings

E-petitions (1) are located in different contexts of political decision-making and (2) are employed by different actors

Informal & ad-hoc expression of opinions

Formal procedures of participation connected to

legislating institutions

Actors: Long-term, coordinated, strategic organisation of interests

Actors: Ad-hoc-aggregation of individual people („swarm“ / „crowd“)

E-Petition of mid-wife organizations to

the Bundestag

E-Petition on openpetition.de to fire Markus Lanz as

talkshow host

E-Petition on „Energiewende“ as part of a campact.de – campaign

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E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag (1/2)

2005: German Bundestag started E-Petition Platform as a pilot project

2008: After sucessful evaluation the platform went into regular operations

August/September 2012: relaunch of the platform; changes to the discussion

area of petitions and option to sign petitions pseudonymously were introduced

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E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag (2/2)

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Data Sources of Study

1. Database of platform

• 2.653 Petitions, started after 13.10.2008 and before 1.2.2013

• ~ 1,32 Mil. users

• ~ 3,48 Mil. individual signatures

2. Online survey of platform users

• Field time: 2. August - 29. September 2013

• Questionnaire was announced on main page of the platform („recent

announcements“); additional announcements spread via Twitter, blogs and boards

• 724 users visited the front page of the questionnaire

• 33,7% finished questionnaire (n=244)

Relatively small sample, especially problematic for analysis in subgroups

No representativity; presumably regular users and more active users are over-

represented; casual users and those visiting petitions directly under-represented

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Central Questions

1. How many signatures do petitions get?

2. What are the users‘ reasons to sign a petition?

3. What impact did the introduction of pseudonymous signatures have?

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0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

160000

15

61

11

16

62

21

27

63

31

38

64

41

49

65

51

60

66

61

71

67

71

82

68

81

93

69

91

10

46

11

01

11

56

12

11

12

66

13

21

13

76

14

31

14

86

15

41

15

96

16

51

17

06

17

61

18

16

18

71

19

26

19

81

20

36

20

91

21

46

22

01

22

56

23

11

23

66

24

21

24

76

25

31

25

86

26

41

Number of signatures per petition

Signatures per petition…

… on average: 1.311 (SD 6.350; Median 351)

> 10.000 signees: 46 petitions

> 50.000 signees: 11 petitions

Maximum: 133.445 (#zensursula)

Ø signers/day 33,4 (SD 163,56)

No significant correlation with age of platform in months, i.e. no general „knowledge of platform“ effect

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Significant differences between different topics

33.7

118.2

63.6

56.7

41.6

36.4

35.6

32.9

25.8

25.7

23

20.1

13.7

12.5

12.2

17.6

36

35.1

16.5

17

14.5

12.9

12.8

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Insgesamt

Media (1,9)

Environment (6,2)

Justice (12,7)

Health (12,7)

Education & Science (2,6)

Parliament & Government (2,5)

Social affairs (9,4)

Finance & taxes (12,4)

Consumer protection (5,2)

Domestic affairs (5,4)

Economy (7,6)

Labor (12,1)

Traffic (8,1)

Other (1,3)

Avg. (with outliers) Avg. (without outliers)

Fig. 1: No. of signatures per day (avg.) for different topics (n = 2582 / 2628)

n=2582 / 2628

Topics:

• ‚manual coding“ based on the categories given in the title of petition

• (in brackets) % of all petitions

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The „Spill-Over-Effect“

18.5

19.1

9.6

16.3

0 10 20 30 40 50

overlap with "10.000+petition" (b)

overlap with "50.000+petition" (a)

no Overlap Overlap

n=2607 (a) F=6,908 df=1; **; (b) F=30,494 df=1; ***

• Jungherr/Jürgens (2010) found that petitions which overlap with a popular petition will get more signatures (1)

• Spill-over-effect is visible in our data as well

Fig 2.: Signatures per day (avg.)

(1) Jungherr, Andreas / Jürgens, Pascal (2010): The Political Click: Political Participation through E-Petitions in Germany. Policy & Internet, Vol. 2, Issue 4, p. 131-165. Hamburg 9 of 16

Central Questions

1. How many signatures do petitions get?

2. What are the users‘ reasons to sign a petition?

3. What impact did the introduction of pseudonymous signatures have?

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“I signed the last petition, because ...“

Reasons for signing a petition (avg. of 4-pt-scale)

3.24

3.44

3.5

3.54

3.85

1 2 3 4

… E-Petitions can be signed without much effort.

… it expressed my already existing opinion.

… its concern and arguments convinced me.

… I want to have its concern discussed publicly.

… I want the Bundestag to deal with the concern.

Answers given on a 4-point-Likert scale from 1 („Disagree completely“) to 4 („Agree completely“);inverted from questionnaire; Average without „Don‘t know“;. n=208-214

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Central Questions

1. How many signatures do petitions get?

2. What are the users‘ reasons to sign a petition?

3. What impact did the introduction of pseudonymous signatures have?

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“How do you usually sign E-Petitions on the platform?“

Signing petitions: Real Names vs. Pseudonyms (%)

27

13.5

11.2

16.7

31.6

0 20 40 60 80 100

Always with a pseudonym

Usually with a pseudonym

Sometimes with a pseudonym, sometimeswith my real name

Usually with my real name

Always with my real name

Share in %; n=215 Hamburg 13 of 16

Signing petitions: Share of Real Names vs. Pseudonyms

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 91 94 97 100

% o

f p

etit

ion

s w

ho

hav

e X

pe

rce

nt

cle

ar n

ame

si

gnat

ure

s

How many % of the users use clear names?

After the relaunch in fall ´12, no petition had more than 50 % share of real name signatures

Most petitions have around 20-30% real names

Ø signers/day 33,4 (SD 163,56)

before 16.8.2012 32,8 (SD 158,24)

after 16.8.2012 39,9 (SD 209,10)

slight, but statistically not significant effect of switch to pseudonymous signing

i.e. no general „mobilisation of those formerly deterred“ effect

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Conclusion and Outlook

The analysis provides first insights into the use of the E-Petition platform of

the German Bundestag

Most E-Petitions acquire very few signatures („long tail“), only a handful has

reached more than 10.000 signers or even the quorum

„Success“ of a petition depends on topic, but also on temporal coincidence with

other popular petitions

Signers want to bring the issue of the petition to the attention of the German

Bundestag; technical ease to find and sign petitions online is a contributing factor

to sign, but apparently not the main driver

After relaunch, pseudonymous signatures are default setting; as a result, majority

of signatures is pseudonymously, but no significant increase of overall signatures

Possible follow-up research

Deeper inspection of petition practices and motivations (e.g. via in-depth

interviews)

Comparing Bundestag dataset to other petition platforms (e.g. openpetition.de,

change.org, …)

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Thank you very much!

Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt

Hans-Bredow-Institut

Rothenbaumchaussee 38, 20148 Hamburg

j.schmidt@hans-bredow-institut.de

www.hans-bredow-institut.de

www.schmidtmitdete.de

www.dasneuenetz.de

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