Quantity or quality? On the coexistence and conflict of parliamentary and private petitioning platforms

The article outlines the recent development of the petitioning system in Germany and discusses the most important private and state platforms for public, digitally signable petitions. Connecting private platforms with the parliamentary petitioning system, which is sometimes demanded, would be counterproductive. The observable possibilities of influencing the course of petitions as well as the economic connections between the various private campaign and petitioning platforms speak against this. Instead, a plea is made for an upgrading of the parliamentary petitioning system. Two concrete measures appear promising here: the introduction of a petitioning hour in the plenary session of the German Bundestag and the establishment of public petitions that can be digitally signed in all federal states. Processes of fragmentation, economization, and devaluation of parliamentarism can thus be countered.