Miteinander gegeneinander

The annual general debates are highlights of political communication: the interaction between the parliamentary groups reveals key lines of conflict. How has interaction in plenary debates in the German Bundestag changed between 1999 and 2023? Manual content analysis of 426 speeches with 52,000 codes shows which alliances and adversaries the parliamentary groups communicate: Ideological lines of conflict increasingly transcend the boundaries of opposition and coalition. In the face of global crises, overarching values are confirmed in inter-party consensus, but tendencies towards provocation and demarcation are also becoming apparent. Time series analysis allows for a differentiated view of the changing parliamentary culture.