The outcomes of the 2013 German Bundestag (federal parliament) are analyzed from the viewpoint of direct democracy. For this purpose, the party positions on 36 topical issues are compared with the results of public opinion polls, and the party and coalition indices of popularity (the average...

Five leading German political parties and their coalitions are evaluated with regard to party manifestos and results of the 2005 parliamentary elections. For this purpose, the party manifestos are converted into Yes/No answers to 95 topical questions (Relax the protection against dismissals?...

The advocates of modern western democracy promote the viewpoint that the class division of the society is becoming outdated. We attempt to disprove this state ment with an example of 28 German parties who participated in the 2013 federal election. The official party positions on 38 policy issues...

In economics and other social sciences, complex processes are often represented by numerical models of reality which more or less well reflect behavioral relationships and interactions. Such attempts are the subject of a lecture course "Mathematical Theory of Democracy" by the author at the...

Since voters are often swayed more by the personal image of politicians than by party manifestos, they may cast votes that are in opposition to their policy preferences. This results in the election of representatives who do not correspond exactly to the voters' own views. An alternative voting...

The German two-vote election system implements two historical conceptions of political representation coined at the end of the 18th century during the American and French Revolutions. The descriptive conception - the parliament portrays the society in miniature - is implemented in the first vote...