The document summarizes research on the E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag. It finds that most petitions receive few signatures, though some gain over 10,000 or 50,000 supporters. Petition success depends on topic and coinciding with other popular petitions. Signers want to bring issues to the Bundestag's attention, and technical ease supports signing, but is not the main driver. After allowing pseudonymous signatures, most are anonymous, but overall signatures did not significantly increase. Further research could explore petition practices and compare the Bundestag platform to others.

1. The E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag
Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt
(& Katharina Johnsen)
Hamburg  13.01.2015

2. 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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3. 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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4. E-Petition Platform of the German Bundestag (2/2)
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5. 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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6. 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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7. 0
20000
40000
60000
80000
100000
120000
140000
160000
1
56
111
166
221
276
331
386
441
496
551
606
661
716
771
826
881
936
991
1046
1101
1156
1211
1266
1321
1376
1431
1486
1541
1596
1651
1706
1761
1816
1871
1926
1981
2036
2091
2146
2201
2256
2311
2366
2421
2476
2531
2586
2641
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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8. 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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9. 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

10. 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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11. “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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12. 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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13.  “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, sometimes
with my real name
Usually with my real name
Always with my real name
Share in %; n=215 Hamburg 13 of 16

14. 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
%ofpetitionswhohaveXpercentclearname
signatures
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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15. 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, …)
 … Hamburg 15 of 16

16. 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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