Erakondade kuvandid ja nende muutumine 2007. aasta Riigikogu valimiste eel

Date

2007

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

Description

Overview of the substance of the research: The study is based on a panel questionnaire carried out in two waves on a subjectively chosen (i.e. not representative of the voters or the society as a whole) group of people in December 2006 and two and a half months later, at the end of February 2007. The general election in Estonia was held on March 3rd 2007 and during the 2,5 months in between the two waves of the questioning, a massive election campaign was carried out by all 5 parties represented in the parliament at the time. The questionnaire was filled out anonymously over the internet by 60 participants in December and by 42 people of the same group in February. The questionnaire focused on mapping out the images of all 5 major political parties through respondents describing each party in terms of opposing adjectives on a scale of 1-7 (the semantic differential). For example, each respondent was asked to place the Reform party on a scale of “cold” to “hot” and so on altogether in 16 categories. These assessments could then later be compared to the persons other distinctions and the assessments of the party before the campaign can be compared to the assessment almost at the end of the campaign. The main aim of the study was to map out how political parties in Estonia are perceived on a more subconscious, emotional level and to measure, whether these perceptions are highly volatile at a time of intense communication by the political parties. Key findings: First, political parties turned out to have rather different images. Whereas the parties are reportedly becoming more homogeneous in terms of policy, the differences on a more emotional level that we could call the image or the brand are clearly perceived. Secondly, of the socio-demographic denominators, no data was proven to be a factor in influencing the image of a party. Third, when analyzed against people’s perception of how important the elections are, how much they can influence the result and how often they think about the elections in the first place, it turned out that people thinking about elections more often are generally more critical of all parties. The cause-effect relationship can naturally be the other way as well: people more critical of the parties think about the election more often. Also, people who consider the elections to be more important, see parties in darker colors (and vice versa). Fourth, after 2,5 months of campaigning, the number of people thinking about the elections had increased. The number of people considering their ability to influence the result to be low did not decrease – rather the number of people under the impression they have a big influence on the result, decreased. And the number of people considering the elections to be important, decreased. Fifth, the images of political parties amongst the group changed little when looking at before-and-after results, but the direction of the small changes were towards the positive. Also, there was increased polarization, after the campaign parties received more very high and very low scores on different scales. Significant changes occurred in the reinforcement of existing beliefs about a party for party supporters – a key goal for parties attempting to mobilize their voter in the run up to the elections. The supported party became more positive in the eyes of the respondents, other parties more negative in their image. Consequently as a result of the study we can see voter loyalty forming in the young democracy of Estonia where political allegiances are not easily shifted in the 2,5 months prior to elections and the bulk of campaigning resources will result in the reinforcement and mobilization of latent supporters.

Keywords

H Social Sciences (General)

Citation