Municipal mergers are typically contentious and polarizing issues among both citizens and politicians. In deciding on these, municipal-level referendums are often commissioned by municipal councils. Referendums, though, are also per se polarizing processes that only exacerbate an already polarizing issue. Adding deliberation to referendum processes has been shown in previous studies to be a more democratically sustainable process than mere referendums. In this study, we explore the use of mixed deliberation between citizens and politicians within a municipal merger process in the municipality of Korsholm in Finland, one year before a referendum on the issue occurred. The deliberations were two-hour sessions in February 2018, with local politicians present in each discussion group. Using pre- and post-deliberation surveys, we trace how citizens (n = 117) engaging in deliberation developed their social trust, political trust, and political efficacy during deliberation. Generally, we expected that all of these would be strengthened in deliberation. The results, however, reveal only a few statistically significant effects, some of which ran contrary to expectations.

Declining response rates have remained a major worry for survey research in the 21st century. In the past decades, the same decline in people’s willingness to participate in surveys (i.e., response propensities) has been seen in virtually all Western nations. Even more worrisome, declining response propensities may increase the risk of extensive nonresponse bias. Therefore, a better understanding of which factors are associated with survey nonresponse and its impact on nonresponse bias is paramount for any survey researcher interested in accurate statistical inferences. Knowing which factors relate to low response propensities enables appropriate models of nonresponse weights and aids the identification of which groups to tailor efforts to for turning non-respondents into respondents. This manuscript draws from previous theories and research on survey nonresponse and investigates nonresponse bias, both cross-sectionally and over time, in two time-series cross-sectional studies administered in Sweden (the National SOM Surveys 1992-2022 and the Swedish National Election Study 2022). Capitalizing on available registry data on all sampled persons and their corresponding neighborhood-level contextual data, a meta-analytical analysis of eight years of data collection finds that educational attainment, age, and migrant status are among the strongest predictors of response propensities. However, contextual factors—such as living in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods—also predict willingness to participate in surveys. Furthermore, utilizing the three decades of data, the declining response rates and growing non-response is shown to have been wholly attributable to a deteriorating survey climate rather than birth cohort replacement or immigration patterns.

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With deliberative democracy becoming increasingly incorporated into political processes, the instances of citizens and politicians meeting in deliberation, so-called mixed deliberations, is increasing too. While these are important steps towards more deliberative systems, the mixed deliberation setting nonetheless introduces certain risks regarding equality. Citizens and politicians have different deliberative capacities, which could affect the process of deliberation. Moreover, political inequalities such as gender gaps may be more evident in deliberations where politicians are present. This study focuses on a series of mixed deliberations in 2018 about a proposed municipal merger in Finland. Using content analysis of speech acts (N = 3404) as well as pre-and post-deliberation surveys (N = 225), we analyze patterns according to participant status (politician/citizen) and gender regarding dominance, deliberative discussion quality, and impact on internal and external efficacy. The findings show that politicians dominated the discussions and achieved a higher deliberative quality than citizens. The findings also revealed that women achieved higher deliberative quality in their speech acts.

Folkomröstningar utgör en politisk metod för att öka den demokratiska legitimiteten för ett politiskt beslut. I Finland bidrog en lagändring år 1990 till att det även blev möjligt att arrangera rådgivande folkomröstningar på kommunal nivå. Den politiska makten kvarstår hos kommunfullmäktige, folkomröstningsresultatet till trots, och kommunfullmäktigen runt om i Finland har vid upprepade tillfällen valt att gå emot resultatet från folkomröstningen. Trots detta finns det fortfarande en brist på studier i vilka man har fokuserat på hur resultatet i folkomröstningen inverkar på det efterföljande politiska beslutsfattandet i kommunfullmäktige. Denna studie bidrar till att fylla den forskningsluckan genom att närmare studera i vilken utsträckning valdeltagandet och segermarginalen inverkar på kommunfullmäktigebeslutet att antingen följa eller inte följa resultatet av folkomröstningen. Studiens resultat visar att när segermarginalen är lägre ökar också sannolikheten för att kommunfullmäktige ska rösta emot majoritetsviljan medan valdeltagandet inte verkar att ha någon inverkan på kommunfullmäktigebeslutet. Detta indikerar att när folkviljan blir tillräckligt tydlig, ökar även kongruensen mellan ett folkomröstningsresultat och kommunfullmäktigebeslut, vilket i praktiken innebär att resultatet av en rådgivande folkomröstning vid en klar segermarginal förvandlas till ett politiskt bindande utfall.