The research programme Finnish Local Government 2004 was a joint programme launched by the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, universities and research centres. It was funded by Finnish municipalities and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities. The project engaged in a systematic and comparable analysis of the development of the municipal sector in 1995-2004. The 47 municipalities participating in the programme were representative of the Finnish local government sector.
The study programme comprised of 14 research modules. For most modules, data were collected through mail surveys. The data may be used for cross-sectional or time series analysis.
The survey studied municipal election candidates, their motivation, views on the role and tasks of councillors and views on municipal services. Party membership and elected offices held by the candidate were charted. The respondents were asked who their supporters were and what the supporters' impact on their decision to become a candidate had been. The respondents evaluated how the party or the constituency association had acted in the nomination process. Willingness to be a candidate of some other party was surveyed.
The importance of various characteristics in council work (e.g. co-operation or language skills, long experience in politics) was rated. The respondents were asked to what degree they accepted fellow councillors who never speak out or whose actions are contrary to their publicly stated aims etc. They were also asked to what extent they agreed with a number of statements relating to councillors' duties and tasks and municipal decision-making. The degree to which the respondents represented particular groups was investigated. In addition, the respondents evaluated how important different traits and ways of acting were in good citizenship: paying taxes honestly, obeying the law, sacrificing personal interest for the common good, respecting public property etc.
The survey carried a set of attitudinal questions pertaining to the role of women in politics. Views were also probed on how well municipal services functioned and whether the municipality should invest more or less in a particular service. The questions covered social services, health services, education and cultural services and municipal technical services. The respondents rated the importance of various actions and decisions in developing public services (user fees, quality management, services purchased from other municipalities, etc.). They also evaluated how effectively they themselves were able to influence decision-making.
Background variables included the respondent's sex, year of birth, marital status, mother tongue, education, number of children under the age of 18, employer sector, employment status, and political affiliation.
Two-stage stratified sampling in selecting project municipalities. Total study of election candidates in project municipalities.
The project municipalities were selected separately from those with less than 10,000 inhabitants (28 municipalities) and from those with more than 10,000 inhabitants (19 municipalities). The selection aimed to be representative within both groups in relation to all municipalities with the same population size. Large municipalities were over-represented because 70% of the Finnish population lives in large municipalities. Representativeness criteria included regional location, age and education of the population, industry structure, municipal economy parameters, political situation and variables related to municipal policy. The selected municipalities form a small scale model of all Finnish municipalities. The Åland Islands municipalities were excluded because of special features caused by their autonomy.
The sample consisted of 5,713 persons that stood as candidates in the project municipalities. The total of 3,713 responses were obtained. Information on the candidates was collected in several stages. The lists of candidates, including information such as names and social security numbers, were obtained from the central election committees before the election day. The social security numbers enabled searching the data from the national candidate register supplied by TT Information Service, and the information obtained from that register included the candidate's occupation, age, address, and the body which had put up the candidate. Combining the national candidate register and municipal candidate files was conducted successfully , with the exception of some dozens of persons, whose addresses were then obtained from telephone directories. After the actual survey, a reminder card was sent. The candidates who still did not respond received a reminder letter with the questionnaire. The final reminder letter was sent to the candidates in those municipalities where the response rate was considerably lower than the average.