Historical parliamentarianism - Elites and biographical research

• Aims: basic research, development of methods, provision of services
• Completed projects: parliamentarian collective on a national level
• On-going projects: BIOWEIL, BIORAB, BUMAST

The three main focuses of "Historical parliamentarianism, elites and biographical research" are:

1. Basic research:

For the most part, the investigation of parliamentarianism and the leading political groups in German history does not have an appropriate area-wide database on the relevant political actors. Consequently the research interest primarily focuses on the analysis of institutional and political conditions and on the course of parliamentary negotiations, based on qualitative content analyses, whereas individual persons as a systematic research field do not play a role in this context. The project group "Parliamentarianism and biographical research" has therefore set itself the task of collecting biographical data of German parliamentarians and making the results of their research available for further scientific analysis.

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2. Development of methods:

• Collective biography: The "collective biography" concept has been used for several years to characterise the different methodological procedures involved in person-oriented parliamentarianism and elite research. "Collective biography" can be defined as "the theoretical and methodological reflective, empirical and particularly also quantitatively supported investigation of an historical collection of persons using a comparative analysis of the collective members' backgrounds."
• Content analysis: For the analysis of the political behaviour of parliamentary collectives, among others, various content-analytical procedures are applied. Alongside classic procedures of source evaluation, possibilities for computer-aided quantitative content analyses of parliamentary transcripts are also tested.

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3. Provision of services:

• Data service: The collected data is integrated into the general data service. In addition to the scientific users, the results are particularly useful for services in politics and the media (for example: personnel information service).
• Methodological advice: The experiences of many years in the field of methodological development and use in the area of parliamentarianism and elite research are also reflected in the advisory service. Since 2003 the individual supervision of research projects is supported by the internet-based consulting platform, which is in turn closely connected to the online services of the ZHSF methodology seminar.

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