European Parliament election study 1999

The second Swedish election to the EU-parliament was held on the 13th of June 1999. As in connection to all general elections and referenda held in Sweden since 1956, an election study was carried out in connection to this election. The main subject of the survey was the European Union and the respondent´s attitudes toward the Swedish EU membership, but the survey also included a number of questions asked in one or several of the Swedish election studies.
General questions about politics included: daily newspaper reading habits regarding national politics, local politics, politics in foreign countries and EU-related issues; exposure to news in different media; interest in politics in general, as well as in EU-related issues; the importance of the EU-parliament election and if any issues were of particular importance when deciding how to vote in the election; opinion on the most positive and the most negative effects of EU; opinion on the political parties and their party leaders on a scale ranging from -5 to +5; trust in Swedish politicians, the EU-parliament, the EU-commission, and in the Swedish parliament; opinion on the social democratic government; the most important issues to deal with within the European Union; party preferences; placement of respondent and the political parties on a political left-right scale. Furthermore the respondents had to state their opinion on a number of currently debated issues. Respondents had to give their opinion on the effect of a Swedish EU-membership on areas such as: environment, economy, employment, agriculture, social security, equality between men and women, military security, national independence, development of the European Union, price level of food, crime prevention, immigrants and refugees. They also had to give their judgement of the achievment of the European Union within the same areas, and if they prefered decisions in these areas to be taken on national or European Union level. The respondents had to give their opinion on a number of EU-related issues such as: a Swedish withdrawal from the European Union, Swedish EMU-membership, enlargement of the EU, Swedish participation in the EU defence cooperation, reduction of the possibilities for the member countries to put one´s veto, reintroduction of harder border control between EU member countries, reduction of the support to farmers within the EU, and decriminalization of the usage of hashish. For each of the following countries: the Baltic states, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and Morocco, the respondents had to state if and how soon they should become members of the EU. Respondents had to give their own opinion on: the Swedish EU-membership, as well as their view of political parties for and against a Swedish membership; Sweden´s relation to the European Union in the future; a development of EU towards a federation. Regarding a Swedish membership of the European Monetary Union, respondents had to place the political parties as well as themselves on a ten degree scale according to how positive or negative they were towards the EMU. Respondents had to state how satisfied they were with the way democracy works within Sweden and the European Union respectively, and how proud they are to be Swedish. A number of questions dealt with the election to the EU-parliament such as participation; issues important for the decision how to vote; when the respondent decided how to vote; most important reason to vote; knowledge of candidates; opinion on the different candidates; and exposure to the election campaign. Nonvoters were asked about the reason not to vote, and voters were asked if they used the possibility to vote for a specific person. Demographic item include gender, age, marital status, children, education and occupation.

Purpose:

Explain why people vote as they do and why an election ends in a particular way. Track and follow trends in the Swedish electoral democracy and make comparisons with other countries. Show less..