Citizens' Opinion (in Finnish) is a survey panel focusing on society and politics. Members of the panel participate in different online surveys a few times each year. The panel is administered by Åbo Akademi University's Social Science Research Institute and is part of the Finnish Research Infrastructure for Public Opinion (FIRIPO) funded by the Academy of Finland. The recruiting of members for the panel began in 2019, and the panel currently has thousands of participants. The Citizens' Opinion panel offers possibilities to track developments in public opinion over time and makes it possible to react swiftly to current events and launch quick surveys that examine public opinion with a representative sample.
The data consist of two separate survey rounds that examined Finns' views on politics, political positions of trust, and trust in political institutions. The survey included questions measuring political attitudes as well as two experimental research designs. In the first experiment, respondents evaluated the composition of hypothetical local councils, while in the second they compared hypothetical candidates in parliamentary elections. The data were collected as part of the Citizens' Opinion Panel, which is part of the Finnish Research Infrastructure for Public Opinion (FIRIPO).
At the beginning of the survey, respondents were asked about their interest in politics, satisfaction with life, position on the left-right political spectrum, general trust in other people, and trust in key political institutions and actors. The institutions and actors evaluated included Parliament, political parties, the Government, politicians, and central and local government officials. Respondents were also asked about their views on how well democracy functions in Finland and in their municipality, as well as their attitudes towards politicians simultaneously holding multiple positions of trust at different levels of government.
The first experimental section of the survey was based on the evaluation of a hypothetical municipal or city council. Respondents were presented with randomly varying descriptions of the composition of a council, in which the council's political orientation on the left-right spectrum, the political experience of council members, and the proportion of council members simultaneously serving on a wellbeing services county council and/or in Parliament were varied. After reading the description, respondents rated their trust in the council, its ability to make the right decisions, and its competence in carrying out its duties. Finally, respondents were asked attention check questions concerning the composition of the presented council.
The second experimental section of the survey was based on comparisons between candidates in parliamentary elections. Respondents were presented with six comparisons between two hypothetical candidates and asked to choose which candidate they considered more suitable to serve as a Member of Parliament. The candidates were described in terms of several characteristics, including gender, political ideology, the number of mandates held by the candidate, political experience, and municipality of residence. The characteristics varied randomly across the candidate profiles. After each choice, respondents were also asked whether they could imagine voting for the candidate they had selected. The experimental design examined how different candidate characteristics affected the evaluation and selection of candidates in hypothetical parliamentary elections.
Background variables included, among others, age, age group, response language, level of education, type of neighbourhood, political party preference, left-right political self-placement, gender, and the statistical grouping of municipalities.
Approximately 80% of the panel participants were recruited using various probability sampling methods. The remaining participants were recruited using non-probability sampling. The dataset consists of two separate survey waves. The fieldwork period for the first survey wave (W1) was 7-30 November 2022, and that for the second survey wave (W2) was 10 October-21 November 2023.
The experimental design of the second survey wave focused on triple-mandate holding, including seats on wellbeing services county councils. Therefore, panel participants residing in Helsinki and Åland were excluded from the survey sample, as these areas organise their own social and healthcare services outside the wellbeing services counties.