Research Design
The EES 2014 Voters Study was realised in co-operation with the European Parliament and funded by a consortium of private foundations under the leadership of Volkswagen Foundation (the other partners are: Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Stiftung Mercator, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian) and benefited from the generous support of TNS Opinion.
The 2014 EES Voter Study, First Post-Election Survey consists of an EU-wide survey which was carried out jointly with the post-electoral survey commissioned by the European Parliament (EP). The sample size is roughly 1,100 interviews in each EU member state. The exceptions are Malta and Luxembourg where the sample size is 500 and the United Kingdom where the sample is approximately 1300, of which approximately 300 interviews were conducted in Northern Ireland. Data collection was done via CAPI. The total sample size is approximately 30000.
The questionnaires for the study were identical in the various member states, apart from minor but unavoidable differences generated by differences in party names and country-specific institutions. With the exception of the recurrent EES items, for which the question wording was provided by the EES team, the translation process was carried out centrally by TNS Opinion. A large number of questions were identical to those used in the 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009 study, thus permitting over-time comparisons of voter behavior in between the 1989 and 2014 elections.
Together with the EP component, the post-electoral survey consists of approximately 250 items. The core of the questionnaire is similar to the 2009 Voter Study. It includes electoral behaviour including questions on party choices, past voting behavior, voting behaviour at the national level, party preferences, and propensity to support particular parties; general political attitudes and behaviour based on a question of interest in politics, campaign, most important problems, attitudes regarding EU, left-right self -placement, placement of parties; background characteristics including gender, age, education, religion, media consumption. Unfortunately, due to the limited funding, the questionnaire will not include all the items featured in the 2009 Voter Study. Note that the QP items are commissioned by the EP, while the QPP items are commissioned by the EES.
The main innovations consist of a focus on the effects of the economic crisis, the inclusion of a battery inquiring about the candidates for President of the next European Commission and a new wording of the issues questions and the possibility to link the EES Study 2014 with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey.
How to cite this data: Schmitt, Hermann; Hobolt, Sara B.; Popa, Sebastian A.; Teperoglou, Eftichia; European Parliament, Directorate-General for Communication, Public Monitoring Unit (2016): European Parliament Election Study 2014, Voter Study, First Post-Election Survey. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA5160 Data file Version 4.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.12628
