Data

We use jsonlite package to download parliament votings data. Required fields to access votings data are startDate and endDate (see /api/votings). Session attendance votings are marked as type Kohaloleku kontroll (attendance control). Lets download all votings between 1990-01-01 and 2018-09-01:

library(tidyverse)
library(jsonlite)
url <- "https://aavik.riigikogu.ee/api/votings?startDate=1990-01-01&endDate=2018-09-01&lang=et"
votings <- fromJSON(url) %>% as_data_frame() 
head(votings)
## # A tibble: 6 x 5
##   uuid           title             membership sittingDateTime  votings    
##                                                 
## 1 04be4e82-f266… Täiskogu korrali…          8 1998-01-22T00:0… 
Voting type information lies in votings list-column. Using str() we see that votings data.frame also as some list-columns. Since these list-columns are not necessary for us, lets remove them to have nice data.frame structure.
str(votings$votings[[1]])
## 'data.frame':    1 obs. of  15 variables:
##  $ uuid           : chr "c80bec7e-58cb-347e-ba2b-6511cf1b9b8d"
##  $ votingNumber   : int 1
##  $ type           :'data.frame': 1 obs. of  2 variables:
##   ..$ code : chr "AVALIK"
##   ..$ value: chr "Avalik"
##  $ description    : logi NA
##  $ startDateTime  : chr "1998-01-22T10:42:00"
##  $ endDateTime    : logi NA
##  $ present        : int 75
##  $ absent         : int 26
##  $ inFavor        : int 66
##  $ against        : int 3
##  $ neutral        : int 6
##  $ abstained      : int 26
##  $ relatedDraft   : logi NA
##  $ relatedDocument: logi NA
##  $ _links         :'data.frame': 1 obs. of  1 variable:
##   ..$ self:'data.frame': 1 obs. of  1 variable:
##   .. ..$ href: chr "http://aavik.riigikogu.ee/api/votings/c80bec7e-58cb-347e-ba2b-6511cf1b9b8d"
votings <- votings %>%
  mutate(votings = map(votings, function(x) {
    x[, map_chr(x, typeof) != "list"]
  })) %>%
  unnest(votings)
head(votings)
## # A tibble: 6 x 17
##   uuid  title membership sittingDateTime uuid1 votingNumber description
##                                     
## 1 04be… Täis…          8 1998-01-22T00:… c80b…            1        
## 2 6176… Täis…          8 1998-01-29T00:… 43cc…            3 1. parandus
## 3 6176… Täis…          8 1998-01-29T00:… 2b57…            2 660        
## 4 6176… Täis…          8 1998-01-29T00:… d729…            4 2. parandus
## 5 6176… Täis…          8 1998-01-29T00:… fb1e…            1 1. parandus
## 6 bcb3… Täis…          8 1998-02-09T00:… 2136…            1 Päevakorra…
## # ... with 10 more variables: startDateTime , endDateTime ,
## #   present , absent , inFavor , against ,
## #   neutral , abstained , relatedDraft ,
## #   relatedDocument 
Voting type information is in column description
votings %>% 
  count(description) %>% 
  arrange(-n) %>% 
  head()
## # A tibble: 6 x 2
##   description                   n
##                        
## 1 Lõpphääletus               3245
## 2 Kohaloleku kontroll        3150
## 3 Päevakorra kinnitamine      573
## 4 Lükata tagasi               427
## 5 Läbirääkimiste lôpetamine   376
## 6 1. parandus                 355
For getting detailed votings information we use get_votings() function. In process of getting detailed votings information we also save all votings data so that we can easily use it later.
get_voting <- function(uuid = NULL) {
  
  # uuid: voting id
  # one voting is saved once
  # expects to have data/voting-details folder in your working directory
  
  files <- dir("data/voting-details/") # detailed votings local directory
  if (paste0(uuid, ".rds") %in% files) 
    y <- readRDS(paste0("data/voting-details/", uuid, ".rds"))
  else {
    url <- glue::glue("https://aavik.riigikogu.ee/api/votings/{uuid}?lang=et")
    Sys.sleep(5) + runif(1, max = 2)
    y <- tryCatch({
      x <- jsonlite::fromJSON(url)
      x
    }, error = function(y) NULL)
    if (!is.null(y)) saveRDS(y, paste0("data/voting-details/", uuid, ".rds"))
    else print(y) 
  }
  y
}

ids <- votings$uuid1[votings$description == "Kohaloleku kontroll"]
map(ids, get_voting)
After getting and saving all necessary attendance check data, we use var_faction() and var_decision() functions and some mutating to make attendance data more accessible:
var_faction <- function(x) {
  faction <- x$faction$name
  x$faction <- faction
  x
}

var_decision <- function(x) {
  decision <- x$decision$value
  x$decision <- decision
  x
}

files <- dir("data/voting-details/", full.names = T)
attendance <- map_df(files, function(f) {
  x <- readRDS(f)
  x$voters %>% select(-`_links`, -lastName, -firstName) %>%
    var_faction() %>%
    var_decision() %>% as_data_frame() %>%
    mutate(
      votingNumber = x$votingNumber,
      startDatetime = lubridate::as_datetime(x$startDateTime)
    )
}) %>%
  left_join(votings %>% select(uuid = uuid1, description), by = "uuid") %>%
  filter(description == "Kohaloleku kontroll")

head(attendance)
## # A tibble: 6 x 6
##   fullName   active faction      decision votingNumber startDatetime      
##                                            
## 1 Rein Aidma FALSE  Eesti Refor… kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
## 2 Jaak Aab   FALSE           kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
## 3 Peep Aru   TRUE   Eesti Refor… kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
## 4 Hannes As… FALSE           kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
## 5 Meelis At… FALSE           kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
## 6 Ivi Eenmaa FALSE           kohal            6518 2007-05-16 14:05:51
By now we have all necessary data. Decision values kohal and poolt mean that parliament member attended meeting. puudub means that member did not attend the meeting.

Helpers

We use following helper functions to make data munging and plotting easier:

dat_attendace_roll_mean <- function(x = NULL, n = 1, from = "1970-01-01", 
                                    to = Sys.Date()) {
  
  # member has to be present (attend) at least in 1 attendence check to be 
  # counted as present for the day
  # 
  # x: attendance data
  # n: nr of attendance check over mean is calculated
  
  from <- as.Date(from)
  to <- as.Date(to)
  
  x %>% 
    mutate(date = lubridate::date(startDatetime)) %>% 
    filter(date >= from & date <= to) %>%
    count(date, fullName, decision) %>%
    group_by(date) %>%
    summarise(
      n_present = sum(decision %in% c("kohal", "poolt")),
      n_total = n_distinct(fullName)
    ) %>% ungroup() %>% 
    mutate(p_present = n_present / n_total) %>% 
    mutate(
      p_roll_mean = RcppRoll::roll_sumr(n_present, n = n, na.rm = T) / 
        RcppRoll::roll_sumr(n_total, n = n, na.rm = T)
    ) %>% ungroup() 
}

plot_attendance_roll_mean <- function(x = NULL, n = 1, from = "1970-01-01", 
                                      to = Sys.Date()) {
  
  # plotting function for making results part easier to read
  # 
  # x: attendance data
  # n: nr of attendance check over mean is calculated
 
  gg_data1 <- dat_attendace_roll_mean(x = x, n = n, from = from, to = to)
  # first and last point
  first <- gg_data1 %>% filter(!is.na(p_roll_mean)) %>% filter(date == min(date))
  last  <- gg_data1 %>% filter(!is.na(p_roll_mean)) %>% filter(date == max(date))

  
  gg_data1 %>% 
    ggplot(aes(date, 1 - p_roll_mean)) + 
    geom_line() +
    geom_point(data = first, color = "white", size = 2) + 
    geom_point(data = last, color = "white", size = 2) + 
    hrbrthemes::theme_modern_rc(grid = "Y", plot_title_size = 14,
                            subtitle_size = 11, 
                            plot_margin = ggplot2::margin(30, 30, 10, 30)) +
    scale_y_continuous(labels = function(x) scales::percent(x, 1), 
                       limits = c(.12, .22), 
                       breaks = seq(.12, .24, .03)) +
    labs(x = NULL, y = NULL, 
         title = "Absence from XIII Riigikogu sessions has increased",
         subtitle = glue::glue("{n} meeting days rolling average absence"),
         caption = "\nSource: https://aavik.riigikogu.ee/api/votings/ \n \nTheme: modern_rc from {hrbrthemes}") +
    scale_color_manual(values = col_faction()) + 
    theme(
      legend.title = element_blank(),
      text = element_text(family = "Helvetica")
    ) + 
    geom_vline(xintercept = as.Date(c("2015-03-30", "2016-11-23", "2017-09-10")), 
               lty = 2, alpha = .5, color = "#8e8e93") + 
    annotate("text", label = "new government\ntook the oath", 
                  x = as.Date("2016-11-23") - 20, y = .195, size = 3, hjust = 1) + 
    annotate("text", label = "end of 2017 \nsummer break", 
                  x = as.Date("2017-09-10") + 20, y = .135, size = 3, hjust = 0) + 
    annotate("text", label = "2015-03-30 \nXIII Riigikogu \nfirst session", 
                  x = as.Date("2015-03-30") + 20, y = .165, size = 3, hjust = 0) + 
    annotate("text", label = scales::percent(1 - first$p_roll_mean),
             x = first$date - 70, y = .134, size = 3.5, color = "white") + 
    annotate("text", label = scales::percent(1 - last$p_roll_mean),
             x = last$date + 70, y = .215, size = 3.5, color = "white") + 
    scale_x_date(limits = as.Date(c("2015-01-01", "2018-10-01")))
     
}  

Results

Reading forward, keep in mind that the attendance check information only shows who were present or absent at the moment of attendance check and not during the whole day of the sitting. In the following, member is considered absent, if (s)he has missed all attendance checks of the day.

XIII Riigikogu election was held in 1. March 2015. First XIII Riigikogu session took place in 30. March 2015. Six factions gained enough votes to get seats in Riigikogu. Following plot gives a glimpse of XIII Riigikogu sessions absence/attendance.

plot_attendance_roll_mean(x = attendance, n = 90, from = "2015-03-30")

Notes:

1. Member is considered absent for a day, if (s)he has missed all attendance checks of the day.
   
2. 90 meeting days rolling average absence is calculated by summing all absences from those 90 days (e.g, day one - 15 members were absent, day two - 8 members were absent) divided by total votes (since Estonian parliament has 101 members, it would be 90 x 101).
3. XIII Riigikogu 90th meeting day was 2016-01-21 which makes it the first day the 90 days rolling average is calculated. As of writing, last data point is from 2018-06-14.
   
4. 2016-11-23 Jüri Ratas’ cabinet took the oath. It was preceded by the Second Cabinet of Taavi Rõivas (from 9 April 2015 – 22 November 2016 ²), a cabinet that ended when Social Democrats and the Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica joined the opposition’s no confidence vote against the cabinet. ³

FIN

In this post we saw how to download Estonian parliament session attendance data using Government Office API. One can use same methodology to get other votings data. There is obviously many (and more) interesting topics one can look into using data from the API. Since this post main focus was getting first feeling of the API and data, we leave further analysis for another posts.

If you happen to use the API or have any question, please leave a comment. I am curious of your take on the data! 🙂