Discourse In Parliament: German Parties & Big Tech

By: Julius Renz, Fiene Kuhlmann, Nick Frenken & Darius Walter (D’Kart)

On 26 May 2023, competition law was once again a topic in the German Bundestag: The Parliament held the first reading of the planned reform of the Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB). The Bundeskartellamt, the national competition agency, is to receive extended powers – we reported. This upcoming 11th amendment is an occasion to look back at the last debates in parliament. Four students of Heinrich Heine University have done just that: they have – in a project with Prof. Dr. Heiko Beyer – looked at the debates in the Bundestag in the 19th and 20th legislative periods from a sociological perspective...

Debates on Digital Capitalism

The challenges and concerns of digital capitalism are currently being grappled with by the general public. However, how do lawmakers evaluate the actions and dominant market positions of tech giants? To shed light on this, a discourse analysis was conducted, employing the sociological paradigm of the sociology of knowledge. This analysis focused on the speeches made during two Bundestag debates spanning a year, encompassing all parties represented in the 19th and 20th legislative periods. The findings offer an initial glimpse into how parliamentary parties perceive and appraise the emerging phenomenon of the platform economy, which is commonly referred to as “digital capitalism.” Interestingly, there is an observable trend of increasing deviation from the traditional ideologies of the parties, sometimes with significant disparities.

In this context, ideology pertains to the manner in which knowledge and thinking are shaped within a society. Here, ideologies manifest themselves through political parties, acting as the carriers of ideology. These parties adopt distinct perspectives on economic contexts and provide their evaluations accordingly. Consequently, different ideologically influenced explanations emerge regarding the same phenomenon, digital capitalism. The following outlines these varied ideological perspectives. It is important to note that ideologies are subject to change and adaptation over time, particularly within parliamentary democracies, where institutional pressures can lead to convergence within the party system…

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