Hierarchical, Decentralized, or Something Else? Opposition Networks in the German Bundestag

Abstract

Members of the German parliament may force government to publicly answer questions by issuing minor interpellations (kleine Anfragen). We use 3,608 interpellations from the session 2009-13 that have been signed by authoring and supporting members to construct the social network of support relations among members within the three opposition parties. We find that parties differ markedly in terms of internal structure. While social democrats organize hierarchically, Greens cooperate horizontally. The network for socialist Linke in contrast shows signs of homophily and social segregation. Our approach yields a novel perspective on intraparty politics in parliamentary systems which are notoriously difficult to analyze.