The members of the Political Participation and Modes of Democracy: Finland in a Comparative Perspective research group: Åsa Bengtsson (Åbo Akademi University), Sami Borg (Finnish Social Science Data Archive), Kimmo Grönlund (Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa), Lauri Karvonen (Åbo Akademi University), Mikko Mattila (University of Helsinki), Tom Moring (University of Helsinki), Kim Strandberg (Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa), Jan Sundberg (University of Helsinki), Hanna Wass (University of Helsinki) and Tuomo Turja (Taloustutkimus) and Risto Sänkiaho (University of Tampere).
Finnish National Election Studies are nationally representative surveys conducted in connection with parliamentary elections in Finland. Data have been collected by the Election Study Consortium from the year 2003 onwards. More information in the Finnish Election Study Portal.
The data, collected through face-to-face interviews and self-administered questionnaires, allow study of changes in public opinion and democracy over time. Some modules are repeated but each study also contains questions on current issues. Main themes include political participation, political attitudes, candidate and party choice, voting, and election campaigning.
The survey consists of two parts which were collected after the 2007 parliamentary elections in Finland with the help of face-to-face interviews and a supplementary, self-administered questionnaire. Swedish-speaking population is over-represented in the data. The interview data form Finland's contribution to the international Comparative Study of Electoral Systems program (CSES).
The respondents were asked about their interest in politics and how much they had followed the elections in different media. Their views were canvassed on which group they primarily identified with, self-perceived social status, how stable their party preference was, and what they would be willing to do in order to promote the issues they considered important. Views on voting, participating in parliamentary elections, politics, politicians, and various institutions were queried with the help of attitudinal statements. The respondents were also asked questions about the Internet and the ways of using it as a means of political participation.
Next, the respondents were asked whether they had held any municipal elected offices, and whether they were members of any political party. They were also asked to name objectives which the recently elected members of parliament in their constituency should focus on, and also to name the most important issues debated during the past parliamentary elections as well as the most severe social problems in Finland. The respondents were asked whether they thought voting makes any difference, and whether it makes any difference who is in power. They were also asked to assess the performance of the previous government led by Matti Vanhanen. In addition, the respondents were asked to place various political parties as well as Matti Vanhanen, Eero Heinäluoma, Jyrki Katainen, and themselves on the left-right axis. Some questions focused on how the parties had distinguished themselves from each other during the elections, to what extent the respondents had followed election campaigning, and how well democracy worked in Finland.
In addition, the respondents were asked whether they had voted in the 2007 parliamentary elections, which party they had voted or would have voted for, and whether there was a party in the past elections they would have never considered voting for. If the respondents had not voted, they were asked about their reasons for abstaining from voting. Those who had cast a vote were asked what their voting decision was based on, whether they had voted for a candidate of their own gender, how old their candidate was, and whether they had voted in the 2003 parliamentary elections. Finally, the respondents were presented with some questions measuring their knowledge of political issues.
The supplementary, self-administered questionnaire charted the importance of issues and objectives debated during the elections for the respondents. The respondents were also presented with a set of attitudinal statements on redundancies, growing income disparity, and building a sixth nuclear power plant in Finland. In addition, they were asked about different sources where they had received information relevant to their voting decision, and presented with general questions and statements pertaining to voting, Finland's international relations and politics. Membership in various groups was canvassed, as well as how often the respondents discussed political issues with other people and what they would think if it were possible to vote online on the issues debated in the Parliament. The respondents expressed their views on the significance of party leaders for party support, whether there should be more freedom of choice in the public sector, whether there should be more social reforms, and whether the state of affairs was better at the time of the interview than two years before. Finally, views on the future and satisfaction with financial situation and life in general were probed.
Variables beginning with 'k' denote the national election study variables, 'q' denotes CSES variables, 'p' denotes variables from the self-administered questionnaire, 'a' denotes CSES administrative variables, and 'd' denotes background variables.
Background variables included the respondent's year of birth, gender, education, marital status, trade union membership, economic activity, occupational status, annual household income, religiosity, mother tongue, place of residence, type of accommodation, and constituency.
For the interviews of the Finnish-speaking respondents, the sample was drawn with the help of quota sampling, in which the quotas were based on age, gender and province of residence of the respondents. The interviews were conducted by using the starting point method. The first interview was conducted in a randomly selected starting point, after which the interviewer proceeded to the next four households. In the interviews of the Swedish-speaking respondents, the quotas were not based on province; instead, they were based on constituency, because the interviews were only conducted in the constituencies where the number of Swedish-speaking people entitled to vote was significant (the consituencies of Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland Proper, and Vaasa). In these constituencies, the interviews were further limited to the municipalities where the proportion of Swedish-speaking residents was significant. The selection was based on the information about the percentage of Swedish-speaking residents in Finnish municipalities, drawn from the Finlandssvenskarna 2002 report compiled by The Swedish Assembly of Finland (Folktinget). The quotas used in the interviews of the Swedish-speaking respondents were formed by ordering a random sample from the Finnish Population Register Centre. The size of the sample was ten times greater than the desired number of responses, and it contained altogether 3,000 names of Swedish-speaking people entitled to vote and living in the municipalities selected for the sample. The quotas in this sample were based on age, gender and constituency-specific population distribution.