After the Deliberative Poll on the EU in 2017, the Danish Parliament organized another deliberative poll—in which 400 citizens met for 2 days in November 2018—with the same goal of capturing the demands of Danish citizens regarding the EU and the role of Denmark within the EU.
Problems and Purpose
Background History and Context
The Danish Parliament decided to organize regularly public consultation on the EU, in the format of deliberative polls. After 2017, a new one was organized in 2018 with the same goal of capturing the demands of Danish citizens regarding the EU and the role of Denmark within the EU. In preparation of this event, four preparatory public meetings (open forums with no random selection) were organized in four different cities across Denmark with politicians (from parliament) and citizens. They were about budget, defense and security, terrorism and the economy. One of the four was specifically open to youth citizens below 26 years old.
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
The 2018 Deliberative Poll on the EU (Folkehøring 2018 om EU) was organized by the Danish Parliament.
Participant Recruitment and Selection
A very large sample of the national population was drawn randomly (several thousands). These citizens were contacted by phone, and then those who declared interest were re-contacted to make sure they would attend. After several contacts, 400 people took part in the event, held in Odense. The final sample was rather representative of the Danish population in terms of gender, age, education, region of residence, occupation, interest for politics and voting intention for the referendum. There were some small differences (for example, overrepresentation of men, citizens aged between 40-60, university degree holders, interest in politics and yes vote) but they were not corrected at any stage. The quality of the sample was based on the initially random selection, on the many phone contacts to convince citizens to join, and on the large N.
Methods and Tools Used
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
Although the official goal was both to consult citizens and to raise public awareness of the EU, these deliberative polls are becoming more frequent and are therefore less covered by the media.
Instead, they have mostly become an institutionalized way for the Danish parliament to consult citizens, especially on the EU. A short report from Kantar Gallup and the main results were finally presented in the Parliamentary committee on EU affairs within the Danish Parliament. There was also a debate with party leader at the end of the event. Regarding public awareness, there was a bit of press coverage (TV) and the debates were also broadcasted on the TV channel of the Danish Parliament.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
See Also
References
External Links
Notes
This entry is based on the POLITICIZE dataset. More information can be found at the following links:
- Paulis, Emilien; Pilet, Jean-Benoit; Panel, Sophie; Vittori, Davide; Close, Caroline, 2020, "POLITICIZE Dataset", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Z7X6GT, Harvard Dataverse, V1
- Pilet J-B, Paulis E, Panel S.,Vitori D & Close C. 202X The POLITICIZE Dataset: an inventory of Deliberative Mini-Publics (DMPs) in Europe. European Political Science.