Municipal Election Study, 1993

In 1993 the largest survey so far on local government in Denmark was initiated. Grants from the Ministry of Education, the Municipal College and the Danish Social Science Research Council made it possible to establish the five-year research project 'Det kommunale lederskab' (Local Government) with participation of researchers from the universities in Odense and Aarhus under the leadership of Professor Poul Erik Mouritzen from Odense University. # The purpose of the project is to gain knowledge of the recruitment process, i.e. the process which leads up to and determines the achievement of political and administrative top positions in the municipalities. Furthermore, as regards the politicians also knowledge of the de-recruitment process, i.e. how and why people leave a position as politician. And finally, as regards the management process itself: How do political and administrative leaders function, how is the interaction between them and between them and other decision-makers, e.g. the political parties, and how do they and others regard the managerial role. # The programme consists of five part-projects: #1. Recruitment of local politicians. #2. Election campaigns and election strategies. #3. The role of the parties in local politics. #4. Political management. #5. Administrative management. #For a more detailed presentation of the project, its organization and fields of interest, see the publication 'Forskningsprogrammet om Det kommunale lederskab' (The Research Programme on Local Government). # The research programme will, of course, use existing material relevant for the issues under investigation. This could be general statistics (e.g. local election statistics) as well as data sets processed as parts of other surveys. However, the ambition is, to as great an extent as possible, to base the research on material collected for the project. # In this connection this means qualitative as well as quantitative data. Intensive interviews with central decision-makers in local politics and observation at election meetings are examples of the more soft part of the collection. Traditional postal questionnaire surveys form the basis of the major part of the more hard data. # The rather extensive collection of material takes place in several rounds of which the first and most comprehensive one was carried out in connection with the local election on 16 November, 1993. A number of data sets were collected and were processed and documented. # Concurrently with the other part-surveys a number of the questions asked were included in a Gallup omnibus survey (no. 12) in 1993. The main topics dealt with are: # #- Social biography. #- Party affiliation. #- Voting and reasons for this. #- Political confidence. #- Preferences as regards expense policy and tax policy. #- Assessment of the politician's role, especially the # representation role