Summary information

Study title

EU Membership Referendum in Finland 1994

Creator

Pesonen, Pertti (University of Tampere)

Sänkiaho, Risto (University of Tampere)

Study number / PID

FSD1195 (FSD)

urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD1195 (URN)

10.60686/t-fsd1195 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Individual datasets

Individual datasets that do not belong to any series.

Abstract

The survey studied Finnish political participation and attitudes to the EU membership referendum pre- and post-referendum. Other questions examined what respondents thought of referendums on the whole, what were their political leanings and attitudes to different groups (e.g. refugees, police, certain nationalities). Respondents stated their views on e.g. exercising influence by voting, decision-makers' attitudes to voters, the need to supervise industry and commerce, immigration, equality between men and women and income disparity. They were asked about maintaining the traditional Finnish values, scaling down the public sector, restricting women's right to abortion and increasing the price of alcoholic beverages. Some questions dealt with the level of confidence in politicians, the position of Finnish parties on the left-right axis and the most important objectives of political activity. The survey queried how often respondents read about political and foreign affairs in the newspaper, watched news or current affairs programmes on the television or listened to Finnish Broadcasting Company's (YLE) radio news. Respondents were asked whether the media had affected their opinion of Finland's EU membership, how important the membership was to them and would they have preferred to leave the decision to the government and parliament. The opinions of the respondents' friends and relatives on EU membership were examined. Respondents were asked how interested and how well informed they were of EU issues, what was their stand on Finland's membership and did they intend to vote in the referendum. Respondents' views on the consequences of EU membership on various matters, e.g. Finland's environment, economic life, employment, agriculture, social security, equality, military security, national independence and living conditions were also surveyed. The final themes explored opinions about Finland's foreign policy, policy of neutrality, armed defence, armed forces financing and...

Social sciencesMediaInternational politics and organisationsPolitical behaviour and attitudes

Defence and state security policyEuropean integrationEuropean UnionReferendumsPolitical actionPolitical behaviourPolitical interestPolitical participationValuesVotingVoting behaviour

Data collection period

09/1994 - 11/1994

Country

Finland

Time dimension

Cross-section

Analysis unit

Individual

Universe

Finns born before 1976

Excludes: the Åland Islands

Sampling procedure

Probability: Multistage

Kind of data

Quantitative

Data collection mode

Face-to-face interview

Telephone interview

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper

Publisher

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Publication year

2002

Terms of data access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

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Valentini, Chiara (2008). Promoting the European Union. Comparative analysis of EU communication strategies in Finland and in Italy. Germany, Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Muller Aktiengesellschaft & Co.
Valentini, Chiara (2008). Promoting the European Union. Comparative analysis of EU communication strategies in Finland and in Italy. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. Jyväskylä University Printing House.
Moen, Kathrine L. & Øyangen, Irene & Jenssen, Anders Todal (1996). The 1994 Nordic EU Referendums Study: Study description and codebook. Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology: Department of Sociology and Political Science. ISS-Rapport; 44.
Becker, Julia: The Permanent Blues? Comparing Participation and Vote Choice in EU Referendums between 1972 and 2016. Master thesis, University of Konstanz. 2017.
Kaczmarek, Krzysztof (2017). The Process of Europeanization of Finland With a Particular Purpose of Lapland. Politiikantutkimuksen väitöskirja.
Brummel, Lars (2018). Euphoria and hangovers in direct democracy: the effects of winning, losing and abstaining in referendums on citizens' referendum support. Master's thesis. Utrecht University.
Suomen demokratiaindikaattorit (2006). Toim. Sami Borg. Helsinki: Oikeusministeriö. Oikeusministeriön julkaisu 2006:1.
Suomen EU-kansanäänestys 1994: raportti äänestäjien kannanotoista (1994). Toim. Pesonen, Pertti. Helsinki: Ulkoasiainministeriö, eurooppatiedotus.
Rapeli, Lauri (2010). Politiikkatietämyksen ajallinen vaihtelu Suomessa. Politiikka, 52(2), 133-139.
Paloheimo, Heikki (2006). Asenteet poliittisia instituutioita ja toimijoita kohtaan. Teoksessa: Suomen demokratiaindikaattorit (toim. Sami Borg), 128 - 153. Helsinki: Oikeusministeriö. Oikeusministeriön julkaisu 2006:1.
Borg, Sami (2006). Käsitykset kansalaisuudesta ja omista vaikuttamismahdollisuuksista. Teoksessa: Suomen demokratiaindikaattorit (toim. Sami Borg), 115-127. Helsinki: Oikeusministeriö. Oikeusministeriön julkaisu 2006:1.
Rapeli, Lauri & Borg, Sami (2016). Kiinnostavaa mutta monimutkaista. Tiedot, osallistuminen ja suhtautuminen vaikuttamiseen. Teoksessa: Poliittisen osallistumisen eriytyminen. Eduskuntavaalitutkimus 2015 (toim. Grönlund, Kimmo & Wass, Hanna), 358-378. Helsinki: Oikeusministeriö. Oikeusministeriön julkaisu 28/2016. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-259-517-1