Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2012 (DPES/NKO 2012)
The Dutch Parliamentary Election Study 2012 has been a collaborative enterprise of the Foundation of Electoral Studies in The Netherlands (Stichting Kiezers Onderzoek Nederland; SKON) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).
The Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (DPES) are a series of national surveys carried out under the auspices of the Dutch Electoral Research Foundation (SKON). These surveys have been conducted since 1970. Many questions are replicated across studies, although each has questions not asked in the others. The major substantive areas consistently covered include the respondents' attitudes toward and expectations of the government and its effectiveness in both domestic and foreign policy, the most important problems facing the people of the Netherlands, the respondents' voting behavior and participation history, and his/her knowledge of and faith in the nation's political leaders.
The DPES 2012 consists of two parts: A first round of interviews (CAPI) and a self-completion questionnaire (PAPI). The interviews with respondents were held in the first seven weeks after the elections. After the interview the interviewee obtained a self-completion questionnaire to fill out. About one week after the interview, a new appointment was made in order for the interviewer to collect the questionnaire. This was done in order to increase the PAPI-response.
An important difference with earlier versions of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study is that usually there were two rounds of interviews held, one before and one after the elections. In 2012 the two rounds were put together into one combined round of CAPI-interviews after the elections.
Several variables have been excluded from the public data file in order to protect the privacy of individual respondents. Examples are municipality, zip code and the regional newspaper a person is reading. These variables are available for scientific purposes only at Statistics Netherlands. For more information, contact the Centre for Policy Related Statistics at Statistics Netherlands via cvb@cbs.nl.
