Study title

This survey charted the political views of eligible voters in the 2011 Finnish parliamentary elections. The data was collected in both Finnish and Swedish. This dataset contains the interviews in Swedish (see FSD2673 for the data on Finnish-speaking population). Questions in the interview are for the most part the same in both datasets; the questions about language policy differ somewhat and there are added questions about language for Swedish-speakers. The data is also available in Swedish. The respondents' interest in politics and frequency of discussing political and societal matters were first investigated. Views were probed on whether one political party felt closer than the others and how close this party felt. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with several statements relating to Finnish politics and society (e.g. whether important national issues should be decided in a referendum more often and whether the second official language should be an obligatory subject at school). Perceptions on the performance of the government and trust in different institutions and persons (e.g. the president, politicians, police) were examined. The final set of questions focused on the respondents' voting habits in the latest parliamentary elections. They were asked whether they had voted, when they had voted, to which party their candidate belonged, whether the party or candidate was more important when voting and how much certain reasons affected party choice. The Swedish-speaking respondents were further asked whether the Swedish People's Party in Finland should foremost be a party with a language agenda, how often they attempted to receive service in Swedish, whether language played any role when voting and whether service in Swedish or a short distance to public services was more important. Background variables included, among others, the respondent's gender, year of birth, highest level of education, religiosity, economic activity and occupational...