Authors

• Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE)

Keywords

attitudes, electoral issues, parliamentary candidates, parliamentary elections, political behaviour, politicians, voting, voting advice applications

Abstract

The data consist of responses given by the 2011 Finnish Parliamentary election candidates to YLE (Finland's national public service broadcasting company) candidate selector / voting advice application.

The candidates were first asked about their campaign financing, such as the share of external donations in the campaign budget and the total amount of money used in campaigning. Next, the candidates (n=1948) were asked to what degree they agreed with 30 statements common to all respondents and some statements relevant only to candidates' electoral districts. The themes covered included Finland's financial support to indebted EU countries, corruption in Finland, rights of same-sex couples, immigration policy, NATO membership and powers of the president. Further statements surveyed views on, for example, compulsory learning of Swedish at school, gender quotas, raising the retirement age, nuclear power, cutting government spending, taxation of corporate profits and loan-taking of students.

Statements related to the candidates' own electoral district covered municipal mergers, notable construction projects, and development of municipal services.

Background variables included, among others, age, gender, occupational status, level of education, type of employer, party affiliation, mother tongue, yearly income, religious affiliation and whether R was elected to Parliament.