DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16811927
title: Object-Centric and Traditional Event Data of the German Bundestag

description: Object-Centric and Traditional Event Data of the German Bundestag

This data set contains data that was obtained by querying and processing data from the DIP API of the German parliament (Bundestag):



Period20_procedure_steps_all_additional_event_types.json: an object-centric event log (OCEL) of the 20th period of the German Bundestag that governed in between 2021 and 2025 with additional event types that are derived from the given timestamps, i.e., the promulgation, proclamation, and the entry into force of laws,



Period20_procedure_steps_all_additional_event_types_filtered.json: a subset of the above OCEL containing only the object types "Gesetzgebung" (law making), "Rechtsverordnung" (statutory order), "Bericht, Gutachten, Programm" (report, expert's report, program), "Antrag" (proposition), and "Petition" (petition),




Period1920_procedure_steps_all_additional_events.xes: an XES event log of the 19th (2017-2021) and 20th period (2021-2025) of the legislation process with the additional events,




Period20_procedure_sub_steps.json: an object-centric event log of the 20th period containing only no procedure steps (Vorgangspositionen) but only sub-steps (Aktivitäten), and


raw_data.zip: the scraped Bundestag API JSON files that can be used with the PM4Bundestag Docker Software to create any OCEL or XES event log for the 8th (1976-1980) to the 20th (2021-2025) period of the Bundestag.


Open Data of the German Bundestag

The German Bundestag stores all data of their parliamentary processes in the so-called "Dokumentations- und Informationssystem für Parlamentsmaterialien" (DIP) - formally, the data is obtained from the "Deutscher Bundestag/Bundesrat – DIP", which translates to documentation and information system for parliamentary materials. Within their database, they store every document (in German: Dokument), every process (in German: Vorgang), every process step (literally, they are called "position" in a process - in German: Vorgangsposition), and every process substep (they refer to them as activities, but they are finer activities than the position steps - in German: Aktivität) of the German parliament (Bundestag) and the German federal council (Bundesrat). Within their database, this corresponds to the following:



Dokument: the publicized papers and minutes.

Vorgang: the entire content, procedure, and result of a parliamentary consultation process, e.g., a law-making process with all the related documents. For example, this may include law making, debates, elections, and reports.

Vorgangspositionen: the steps that are taken within a Vorgang, e.g., consultations, votes, motions, and positionings.

Aktivität: parliamentary activities of members of the parliament and government members that are part of one or more processes (which is "Vorgang"). For example, this may include speeches in plenary sessions, oral and written questions, (co-)authorship of draft legislation, and motions. Aktivität is a sub-procedure in a Vorgang and may be related to a Vorgangsposition.


All the Vorgang, Vorgangsposition, and Aktivität data is scraped from the API and stored in an intermediate format of JSON documents. The Dokument data is implicitly covered by references in the data to the URLs from which the original documents can be obtained. The data can also be queried from the DIP API using their public API key. For the usage of the data, a reference to "Deutscher Bundestag/Bundesrat – DIP" as the source needs to be added. The rules on the usage of the data are detailed here.

Open Data to Object-Centric Event Logs (OCEL)

For every process ("Vorgang"), there is a type of the process ("Vorgangstyp"). This is used as an object type to distinguish the types of processes that occur in parliament. The event types are derived from either the Vorgangsposition or Aktivität. We preserve all additional information of the other fields that the API returns by adding them as event and object attributes. Overall, there are 44 object types and 148 event types in the OCEL of the 20th period, with the additional event types. The number of object and event types can vary for other selections of periods. The XES files are flattened on the Gesetzgebung Vorgangstyp. However, the OCEL can also be flattened for any other object type.

Creating Custom (Object-Centric) Event Logs

The raw data can be downloaded and put in the root folder of the dockerized PM4Bundestag project. Once started using Docker, the project offers a UI that can be used to choose a range of periods to create an OCEL or flattened XES file from. Further, there are options to derive the promulgation, proclamation, and entry into force event types. Further, one can decide to derive event types from the Vorgangsposition or the Aktivität data. Currently, it is not possible to add event types derived from both Vorgangsposition and Aktivität since their correct order cannot be determined.