Polls: the opinion of the people or statements from the media?

By Michiel Rovers on 26 September 2011

The third week of September is traditionally an exciting week for Dutch politicians. It’s the official start of the political season.  It all starts with the speech of Queen Beatrix on ‘prinsjesdag’. The content is written entirely by the government, and contains the political program for 2011-2012. After the ceremonial happening of the balcony scene (where the entire royal family waves to the people), it’s the Secretary of Finance’s turn to present the suitcase with the national budget. The real fireworks start on Wednesday as the government defends the choices for cuts or taxes.

This year the message isn’t very cheerful. All financial decisions are dominated by the crisis. Cuts are necessary. But which posts can be cut? Health? Culture? Education? Defense? By each action a large group of people is affected. These people get a chance to speak up by filling in polls or participate in opinion panels. I also participate in these questionnaires and panels to see what is asked, but also to see what happens with the results afterwards. In this blog I try to give a brief overview of one week participating in opinion panels: which questions were asked? In which way were the answers reflected? (How) did politicians react to the answers?

“De nationale begrotingswijzer” (the national budget guide)

This guide was launched a few days before ‘prinsjesdag’ by the Institute of Public and Politics. This application made it possible for the public to indicate on which items should be cut. The only requirement was that the cuts would bring a total amount of 18 Billion euros. For example, when one wants to prevent extra cuts on culture, one has to choose another item to make those extra cuts. In this case no questions were answered, but they could actively modify charts.

(nationalebegrotingswijzer.nl, 2011)
The participants decided that no cuts should be made on health care and social security. Additional interventions are needed by the government, foreign affairs, defense, and culture and media. The results were presented in the daily newsshow EenVandaag. There were no comments from politicians and it is unclear what happens further with the results.

Peil.nl

National opinionmaker Maurice de Hond sent a webquestionnaire to collect the first reactions from the public on the presented budget. Some examples of questions that were asked: ‘are the cuts divided honestly by the government?’ and ‘which cuts do you want to withdraw by paying more taxes?’.  The website peil.nl presents the results by distinguishing political preference and income. One result from the questionnaire led to a response from politician Sap: “also CDA and VVD-voters want to rescue child care by cuts in child allowance for the higher incomes”.

There was a turning point in the content of the polls from the first day of the debates on Wednesday. The focus of the debate should lie on the content of the cuts, but it turned out to be different. A clash between Geert Wilders and Job Cohen, and a new clash between Geert Wilders and Mark Rutte on Thursday controlled the media. These clashes also dominated the polls.

Eenvandaag opiniepanel

After Cohen was called the ‘bedrijfspoedel van Rutte’ (the poodle of Rutte), this subject was used for the Eenvandaag poll. The questions were only intended for the PVV-voters. 83 percent of the 2000 panel members didn’t mind that Wilders called Cohen like that. 77 percent also answered that Wilders didn’t exceed the boundaries of decency with his personal attacks. In this case no politician responded to the opinion of the people.

Peil.nl

On Thursday Wilders and Rutte clashed because of a comment that was made about Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan.  Although the debate was focused on the planned cuts during the whole day, all the attention went to the short moment between Wilders and Rutte. This was also in the poll of Maurice de Hond. In his overall poll about the debates, most of the questions were asked about the clashes between the politicians instead of the content. Other then the reactions of politicians in the media, there was no reaction on the results of the polls.

At this moment it’s Monday, the week after. Peace and stability have somehow returned. Time to reflect to the influence of the people who spoke up in the polls and panels. For me these reflections lead to some questions: who decides which questions are asked in these polls? What happens with the results? Are there politicians who use these results for their policy or their debates?  Why do media choose to deepen single clashes rather than debates about cuts and taxes?

I would like to seek answers to these question and tell you about it in my next blog. To be continued ……..

tagged with: polls, panels, politics, participation

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