Analyzing German Parliamentary Speeches: A Machine Learning Approach for Topic and Sentiment Classification

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Pätz, Lukas, Beyer, Moritz, Späth, Jannik, Bohlen, Lasse, Zschech, Patrick, Kraus, Mathias, Rosenberger, Julian
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Pätz, Lukas
Beyer, Moritz
Späth, Jannik
Bohlen, Lasse
Zschech, Patrick
Kraus, Mathias
Rosenberger, Julian
author_facet Pätz, Lukas
Beyer, Moritz
Späth, Jannik
Bohlen, Lasse
Zschech, Patrick
Kraus, Mathias
Rosenberger, Julian
contents This study investigates political discourse in the German parliament, the Bundestag, by analyzing approximately 28,000 parliamentary speeches from the last five years. Two machine learning models for topic and sentiment classification were developed and trained on a manually labeled dataset. The models showed strong classification performance, achieving an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.94 for topic classification (average across topics) and 0.89 for sentiment classification. Both models were applied to assess topic trends and sentiment distributions across political parties and over time. The analysis reveals remarkable relationships between parties and their role in parliament. In particular, a change in style can be observed for parties moving from government to opposition. While ideological positions matter, governing responsibilities also shape discourse. The analysis directly addresses key questions about the evolution of topics, sentiment dynamics, and party-specific discourse strategies in the Bundestag.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_03181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Analyzing German Parliamentary Speeches: A Machine Learning Approach for Topic and Sentiment Classification
Pätz, Lukas
Beyer, Moritz
Späth, Jannik
Bohlen, Lasse
Zschech, Patrick
Kraus, Mathias
Rosenberger, Julian
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
This study investigates political discourse in the German parliament, the Bundestag, by analyzing approximately 28,000 parliamentary speeches from the last five years. Two machine learning models for topic and sentiment classification were developed and trained on a manually labeled dataset. The models showed strong classification performance, achieving an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.94 for topic classification (average across topics) and 0.89 for sentiment classification. Both models were applied to assess topic trends and sentiment distributions across political parties and over time. The analysis reveals remarkable relationships between parties and their role in parliament. In particular, a change in style can be observed for parties moving from government to opposition. While ideological positions matter, governing responsibilities also shape discourse. The analysis directly addresses key questions about the evolution of topics, sentiment dynamics, and party-specific discourse strategies in the Bundestag.
title Analyzing German Parliamentary Speeches: A Machine Learning Approach for Topic and Sentiment Classification
topic Computation and Language
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.03181