Special issue proposal: Methodological Advances for the Study of German Politics 

Over the past decade(s), German politics has undergone substantial transformation: rising electoral volatility, increasing party system fragmentation, changing modes of political communication, and the growing relevance of parliaments, parties, and citizens’ digital traces. At the same time, political methodology has evolved rapidly. New forms of data — including experimental data, administrative records, geospatial data, as well as text, image, and audio-visual data — now allow researchers to study political behavior and institutions at an unprecedented level of temporal and substantive granularity. Parallel advances in causal inference, machine learning, statistical modeling, and computational social science have fundamentally expanded the empirical toolkit of political science. 

This special issue aims to synthesize these developments by bringing together contributions that showcase methodological innovation in combination with substantive applications. We particularly encourage contributions that introduce or adapt recent methodological approaches — including computational text and media analysis, novel modeling and measurement strategies, or advanced causal inference techniques — and demonstrate their value through empirical applications to German politics — including on questions of electoral behavior, legislative activity, party politics, political communication, and party competition. By integrating methodological innovation with substantive political research, the special issue seeks to provide both a state-of-the-art overview of contemporary empirical strategies and a roadmap for future research on German politics across subfields. 

If you wish to be included in a potential special issue, please fill out the information on the next page. 

Your data will be used to contact you to inform you about the success of your submission for inclusion in the special issue proposal and may be forwarded to the Editors of the Politische Vierteljahresschrift / German Political Science Quarterly.