The Norwegian Local Election Studies of 2019 and 2023

This project continues the Norwegian Local Election Studies, which have been carried out since 1995 at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo, in close collaboration with other research institutions. The Local Government Reform is an important topic: Since most municipal amalgamations took place between 2019 and 2023, it is a unique opportunity to examine how they affect political behaviour and political attitudes. We take a closer look at the county level in the 2023 study, including both mergers and dissolutions. The main renewal of the 2019-2023 project, however, is increased internationalization. To date, there has been no international network of local election surveys. We have initiated such a network and invited European researchers to participate in the "European Network on Local Election Studies (ENLES)". The purpose is to facilitate research collaboration and comparative local election research. The first step is to collect information on local election surveys in European countries. Our starting point for internationalization is the Danish Local Election Studies, where comparable surveys are carried out, making it possible to exploit the comparative potential of the Norwegian Local Election Studies. So far, this international cooperation has led to two published articles: an analysis of gender balance in Danish and Norwegian municipal councils, and a contribution on Norway for an international handbook on local elections. The main data sources are representative post-election surveys from 2019 and 2023. Moreover, a combined data file for all the local election surveys from 1995 up to and including 2019 has been created. A qualitative study of how the parties in three amalgamated municipalities handled the merger of local party branches, as well as candidate selection for the 2019 municipal elections, has been carried out. In 2023, experimental data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel (University of Bergen) are also used. The project also uses register data on voters (from the electoral roll), on candidates, and aggregated municipal data. The main publication from the 2019 study is an open access book in Norwegian that aims to make research results readily accessible. A corresponding book will be published after the 2023 election. The ten chapters in the 2019 book explore voting behaviour and election campaigns, as well as political participation and political trust. The 2019 local elections were marked by mobilization, protest, and high turnout, due to the focus on politically charged issues such as the toll roads, climate change, and municipal amalgamation. Amalgamation was also a part of the institutional context; the 2019 elections took place in newly merged municipalities. How citizens feel about municipal reform and its potential consequences is explored. Several chapters examine the significance of amalgamation on various aspects of local democracy: local party systems, turnout and voting behaviour, the parties’ candidate selection, and representation in municipal councils. Taken as a whole, this anthology represents a status report on local democracy in the first election held in the merged municipalities. Immediately after the 2023 election, project participants published three election analyses in a publication from Kristiania University College. In addition, several of the researchers commented on the election and its results in the media. The project has published several international articles. One of these has studied the impact of preference votes on the gender balance in municipal councils in Norway and found a gender-generation gap: Older women are underrepresented, partly because of preference votes. Another article asks why there are more female local councillors in Norway than in Denmark. Municipal structure, the electoral system and party system do not appear relevant, but the parties’ candidate selection seems to matter. Norwegian parties prioritize gender balance higher than the Danish ones, perhaps because gender equality is prominent in the public debate in Norway, but seems to be almost a taboo in Denmark. Other articles have examined the effect of ‘get out the vote’ experiments, including reminders via SMS and telephone calls to voters in parliamentary and local elections. The experiment indicates that such reminders have the greatest mobilizing effect in local elections, where turnout is lower than in parliamentary elections. The project also has several English-language papers in progress. One of these analyse factors that shape citizens' attitudes to municipal mergers, in particular to what extent characteristics of the merger partners influence citizens' attitudes. Another paper asks whether municipal mergers affect citizens' trust in local and national politicians. In contrast to similar studies from Denmark, we find no effects on trust.

The aim of this proposal is to provide both continuity and innovation to the NLES, which have been carried out since 1995. Throughout this period, the NLES have been led from the Institute for Social Research, Oslo, in close collaboration with other research institutions. Our aim is to build on this series of earlier studies and provide continuity regarding institutional affiliation and research design. The project will continue to be led by the Institute for Social Research, in cooperation with several other research institutions. We will continue using a post-election survey as the main data source in the project. The main publication from both the 2019 and 2023 studies will be a book in Norwegian that aims to provide high-quality readily accessible research results relevant for policy-makers, students and the general public including the media. An equally important goal is to renew the field of local election studies in Norway. New methodological approaches will be introduced, and research on new topics will pick up developments in Norwegian local politics, but the main renewal of this proposal is increased internationalization. No international network of local election studies exists. Systematic international cooperation regarding local election studies must therefore start from scratch, and our aim is to build such a network during the project period. Our starting point will be the Danish Local Election Studies, where comparable surveys are carried out. Moreover, the Danish project is currently in the process of establishing an international network of local election studies, in cooperation with Polish and Belgian researchers. Comparing Norway with Denmark will not only put the findings from the Norwegian case in perspective; it will also make it possible to exploit the comparative potential of the NLES better than has usually been the case, placing NLES at the forefront of comparative local election research.