Today, I (Holger) retire from ParlGov.
It has been a project that I have worked on for almost two decades. I found the first mention of the project name in a file from 2006 and a first version of the Django app from 2007. All changes since mid-2009 are documented in news entries, among them new major versions of the site in 2010 and 2014. This year, I completed a minimal new version of the site.
Last year, we updated the data until June 2023 with the previous team of data editors. Thanks again, Alexandra and Meike.
The stable release is the last version of the ParlGov data, which has received contributions from several data editors and suggestions from colleagues over the years.
parlgov-experimental.db includes all public information from the project. All other information (data tables, news, docs, news entries, etc.) is derived from it. The last version also includes (incomplete) information on confidence votes, support parties, and additional documentation.
I plan to keep the new site, with the data until 2023, online as long as it needs only security updates.
Both project maintainers keep copies of the following:
- an archive of document sources (several thousand files)
- versions of the entire SQLite database (including additional data)
- a Docker image archive to run the legacy app
If feasible, I put some of this information into a public data archive with (very) restricted access. Again, all important data from the project is in ‘parlgov-experimental.db’.
I am about to complete a working paper that introduces the new ParlGov site and provides my perspective on this type of data infrastructure in political science research based on my experience through the project.
With ParlGov, we have received wide recognition and many citations. Many scholars provided inspiration or pointed out errors. Thanks. We were less successful in gaining research grants for the project.
Personally, I learned a lot through the project about science, data, collaborations, programming, politics, and much more. Thanks!
