Political Topics APIClassify the subject. Preserve the attribution.

Build categories around public subjects

Policy areas, institutional processes, and civic events can provide useful subject categories. Define them in terms of what a document discusses. A person’s name or party reference should not automatically determine a policy topic.

Keep topic, genre, and viewpoint separate. Reporting on a proposal, an opinion piece about it, and the proposal itself can share a subject while serving different purposes. Preserve enough metadata for readers to recognize which kind of source they are viewing.

Attach statements to their speakers and context

A document can report a claim without endorsing it. When summarizing or extracting a statement, retain who made it and the context in which it appeared. A classifier should not turn quoted rhetoric into an unattributed description of reality.

Avoid inferring political affiliation or beliefs about an individual from a document-level topic. The goal is to organize public content for retrieval. Keep records about the subject of a text separate from any unsupported profile of the person associated with it.

Make jurisdiction and time explicit

The same institutional term can mean different things across countries and systems. Preserve jurisdiction, relevant dates, and the role of a named institution when the source provides them. Link to geographic context rather than relying on a universal label alone.

Policy proposals also move through stages. A discussion, introduced measure, enacted decision, and implementation update are different events. Avoid a taxonomy that makes every mention look like a completed action.

Use transparent review rules

Document how labels are assigned and how corrections are handled. Test contentious or ambiguous examples with reviewers who can distinguish subject classification from agreement or disagreement with the content. The aim is a consistent editorial rule, not a desired political conclusion.

A useful political archive helps readers inspect original evidence, follow a policy over time, and compare coverage with its context intact. Keep the vocabulary open to correction and avoid promising neutrality as a property that can be established by a topic label alone.

An illustrative record

This example highlights fields worth discussing when you design your own contract. Define their meanings, allowed values, and review rules before an application relies on them.

{
  "policy_topic": "transport.policy",
  "jurisdiction": "example-jurisdiction",
  "statement_attribution": "example-public-record",
  "process_stage": "proposal",
  "review_status": "context_checked"
}

Illustrative schema and example values; adapt them to your data and review process.

Questions about Political Topics API