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DEMOS-Demokratisk og effektiv styring, planlegging og forvaltning

The Norwegian National Election Studies of 2017 and 2021

Alternative title: Den norske valgundersøkelsen i 2017 og 2021

Awarded: NOK 37.5 mill.

The Norwegian National Election Studies (NNES) is an ongoing research project, the main purposes of which are to analyze elections, election results, voter behavior, and voter attitudes over time. The 2017 and 2021 NNES builds on the extensive amounts of previous research within the framework of the Election Study. The first aim of the NNES of 2017 and 2021 was to build on previous research and to provide continuity with respect to institutional affiliation, research design, data-collection methods, and analyses of voter behavior. A second and equally important aim of the 2017 and 2021 NNES is to renew the field of election studies in Norway and to enable innovation in research questions, methods, and designs. The NNES team has collaborated with Statistics Norway in several data-collection schemes in 2017 and 2023, including the main election study. This collaboration is now part of “Norway’s National programme for official statistics” which was adopted by the Government in December of 2023. This has been a successful collaboration with some innovations in terms of methodology. A main difference from previous Norwegian Election Studies is that increasing shares of the respondents answered questions online. This change has so far been achieved without a loss in response rates and the quality of data. The data from the 2017 and 2021 Norwegian National election Study is now available for other researchers through Sikt (formerly the Norwegian Centre for Research Data). Some of the main statistics from the project are also available in a simplified form for the general public at the project website valgforskning.no. The main publications from the NNES are three books: 1) "Velgere og valgkamp – En studie av stortingsvalget 2017 [Voters and Election Campaigns – A Study of the 2017 Storting Election] (Bergh & Aardal, eds., 2019) 2) “Valg og politikk siden 1945. Velgere institusjoner og kritiske hendelser i norsk politisk historie” [Elections and politics since 1945. Voters, institutions and critical junctures in Norwegian political history] (Bergh, Haugsgjerd & Karlsen, eds., 2020) 3) “Politikk i urolige tider. En studie av stortingsvalget 2021” [Politics in troubled times. A Study of the 2021 Storting Election] (Bergh & Haugsgjerd eds., 2023). These books in include analyses of Norwegian elections and voter behavior, with two of them focusing on specific elections (2017 and 2021) and one taking a longer historical perspective. The topics addressed in the books include, but are not limited to, those that are specified in the research proposal: The election result in an historic and comparative perspective; the election campaign, including events, changes in public opinion, the role of the media, and campaign efforts by both the political parties and individual politicians; public opinion; voting; voter turnout; government formation. The Norwegian Election Campaign Study probably represents the biggest change in how the NNES is conducted. In 2017, Statistics Norway recruited a sample of voters that were interviewed four times, starting in June before the election campaign, then there were two interviews in short order during the campaign, while the last round took place in the week after the election. This panel study is a valuable addition to the election study, because it enables us to study the dynamics of the election campaign itself. Panel data gives us the opportunity to study individual level change and it is helpful in trying to identify causal effects. Our goal is to continue the campaign study as a regular part of the NNES. Access to public register data on voter turnout constitutes a huge leap forward in this research topic. At the time of the 2017 parliamentary election, it covered most municipalities and more than 90 percent of all Norwegian eligible voters. In 2021 practically every eligible voter was registered in this system. In 2017, we used register data to conduct several large-scale experiments in voter mobilization, we analyzed the social composition of voters versus abstainers, and we took an especially detailed look at voter turnout over time. More than 30 peer-reviewed articles have been published in this period. Many of the publications are within areas where we have provided innovation and renewal to the NNES, such as voter turnout and election campaigns. The NNES is a significant contributor to international research on elections and voter behavior with several publications in the best journals in this field. NNES researchers continue to disseminate knowledge to the wider public through media appearances. Researchers from the team are more than 1000 times in written media in the last year, in addition to a large number of TV and radio appearances.

Valgundersøkelsen er et pågående forskningsprosjekt, hvor det er et sentralt formål å videreføre datainnsamlinger og analyser fra tidligere undersøkelser. Når det gjelder virkninger og effekter utover dette vil vi særlig peke på følgende punkter: * Det har vært et mål å utvide samarbeidet med andre forskere og institusjoner. Som det fremgår av resultatrapporten har valgundersøkelsen et bredt samarbeid med en rekke miljøer som arbeider med politisk adferd og valgforskning. * Datainnsamlingen i prosjektet er mer omfattende og er av svært høy kvalitet. Disse dataene blir benyttet av forskere i prosjektet og samarbeidspartnere, men blir også gjort tilgjengelig for forskersamfunnet mer allment. Valgundersøkelsens data utgjør en form for gullstandard for data om velgere og velgeradferd i Norge. * Prosjektets forskere gjør en betydelig innsats for å formidle kunnskap om valg, politikk og demokrati til offentligheten i Norge. Prosjektets analyser og begreper blir en del av den offentlige diskursen om disse temaene. Slik sett kan man argumentere for at prosjektet har bidratt til en mer kunnskapsbasert offentlig debatt om valg og demokrati. * Prosjektet har bidratt med ny kunnskap på en rekke områder, for eksempel når det gjelder forståelsen av velgerbevegelser og dynamikken i valgkamper, når det gjelder ulikheter i valgdeltakelse og potensialet for velgermobilisering, partipolitisk polarisering og mye mer (se resultatrapporten og publikasjonene).

The aim of this proposal is to provide both continuity and innovation to the NNES. By the time of the 2017 parliamentary election, 60 years will have passed since the first Norwegian Election Study. This project, which is probably the longest-running social science project in Norway, has produced a large amount of data and knowledge on Norwegian politics and society in general. A key goal of our proposal is to build on this previous research and to provide continuity with respect to institutional affiliation, research design, data-collection methods, and analyses of voter behavior. We will continue using a large-scale post-election survey as the main data source in the project. The main publication will be a book in Norwegian that aims to combine high-quality research with accessible writing. This makes the book relevant for both students, academics, politicians, civil servants, journalists, and the general public. An equally important goal of our proposal is to renew the field of election studies in Norway and to enable innovation in research questions, methods, and designs. Starting with the 2017 election, we aim to introduce a campaign study as a regular part of the National Election Studies. This study will use new and innovative methods for the purpose of capturing the dynamics of election campaigns. We also propose a renewal of the study of election turnout, using experimental methods and data from the electronic electoral roll that the Norwegian government is gradually implementing and making available to researchers. In the upcoming 2017 election, we plan to conduct a study of rightwing populism and anti-immigrant mobilization. Finally, we need to be able to follow events as they happen, and to have resources available so that we can plan and execute new research efforts during the course of the project period.

Publications from Cristin

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DEMOS-Demokratisk og effektiv styring, planlegging og forvaltning