AUTNES Candidate Survey 2013

"The AUTNES Candidate Survey 2013 was conducted after the Austrian national parliamentary election of 29 September 2013. The dataset is based on a written census survey of the 3.946 candidates for the National Council election. Candidates were asked questions on four topics: Political background and activities, campaigning, issues and policies as well as democracy and representation. The first subject area contains variables like the candidates’ party affiliation, its duration and possible changes as well as several indicators for political activity like association membership or the average weekly time spent with party activities. Next, candidates were asked about several details of their campaign: Its aim and strategy, time spent, occurring problems, communication means, personal campaign funds and relationship with the party. The third section on issues and policies also includes (besides questions about the candidates’ positions on several topics) coalition preferences, left–right self-placement and opinions on EU topics. The final part of the dataset holds information on candidates’ general attitudes about democracy, their preferred electoral system as well as their understanding of how a Member of Parliament should act.

Topics:
1. Political background and activities: Party for which the candidate ran in this election; year of joining the party; earlier membership in other parties; motivation to be active in politics; importance of selected reasons to stand as a candidate in this election; positions (e.g. local party office, mayor, etc.); membership in organizations or associations; time for party activities in an average week when there is no electoral campaign.

2. Campaigning: primary aim of campaign (self vs. party); time spent campaigning during the last four weeks before the election; hours per week during the last weeks of the campaign spent on selected campaign activities; followed the same strategy or adapted the strategy in the course of the campaign; reason for adapting the strategy; important problems or events that influenced opinions of voters in own constituency; importance of selected means of communication in the campaign; use of own campaign material (not provided by party); ranking of most important campaign issues (party’s manifesto, one particular issue in the party’s manifesto, the party’s record, the top candidate, other members of the party, the economic well-being of the constituency, social cohesion and solidarity in the constituency, demands of the voters in the constituency, own openness of the voters, own local or regional background, own political experience); frequency of mentioning other parties in the campaign; level of direct competition with other parties in the constituency (SPÖ, ÖVP, FPÖ, BZÖ, GRÜNE, NEOS, FRANK); level of intra-party competition for nomination as a candidate on each tier of the electoral system; number of people in the electoral district that worked for the party’s campaign; number of people in personal campaign team ; use of professional political consulting for the campaign in the electoral district; campaign funds; extent of coordination with the national, regional, local and other party branches; emphasis on issues specific to the constituency that were not raised by the national party; members of the party leadership visited the candidate’s constituency during the campaign; goal of the personal campaign (preferences vs. party votes); evaluation of chances to win a mandate; evaluation of the election campaign (fair, aggressive, boring); mentioned the party’s top candidate in the campaign; emphasized personal characteristics of the party’s top candidate (competence, honesty, assertiveness, charisma); factors influencing the election result of the party; knowledge of party manifesto content; opinion on the party manifesto (e.g. an important source of information for candidates on the positions of the party, etc.); the ideal election manifesto should be short and concise or an extensive summary of party positions; sources of information on the other parties’ positions in the campaign.

3. Issues and politics: most important political problems in Austria (current and during campaign); attitudes towards different political issues (politics should keep out of the economy, the national debt must not increase, politics should balance differences between large and small incomes, unemployment needs to be fought, taxes should be lowered, the state should not hold ownership of business companies, Austria’s cultural life is enriched by immigrants, immigration to Austria should be more constrained, adequate German language skills should be a prerequisite for immigration, Austria should take a tough stance on admission of asylum seekers, immigration from Islamic countries is a danger to the value systems in Austria, need of stronger measures to protect the environment, in a nursery small children are taken care of just as well as they are by their parents or grandparents, comprehensive school for all children until the age of 14, all students should be required to pay tuition fees, in case of equal qualification women should be favoured at a job application, women should be free to decide on matters of abortion, same-sex union should grant the same rights as marriage between a man and a woman, authorities and capacities of policy should be expanded to enhance crime prevention and law enforcement, criminals need to be punished severely); perceived change in relation between Austrians and immigrants during the past three years; preferred coalition partner; left-right-self placement; left-right position of parties in Austria; left-right positon of own party’s typical voter in the electoral district; Austria’s membership in the EU: good thing or bad thing; Austria should remain a member of the EU or withdraw from the EU; self-placement, placement of party and typical party voter in the electoral district on European unification; opinion on a European economic / financial government; satisfaction with democracy in the European Union; preferred countries that should become members of the EU.

4. Democracy and representation: satisfaction with democracy in Austria; assessment how well the National Council as a whole represents the views of Austrian voters; in case of conflict members of parliament should represent the interests of their own province or the interests of Austria as a whole; in case of conflict members of parliament should represent the interests of the electorate as a whole or the interests of the party’s voters; preferred voting behaviour of a member of parliament in different situations of conflict (own position vs. party´s position, own position vs. voters´ position, party´s position vs. voters´ position); assessment of the performance of the national government in the last legislative term; electoral reform: most important function of an electoral system (proportionality vs. efficiency); favour/oppose introduction of majoritarian electoral system in Austria; preferred majoritarian electoral system; opinion on the four-percent threshold required for entering the National Council.

Demography: sex.

Additional variables: respondent ID; respondent was a member of parliament during the 25th legislative period.