The contentious politics of the census in consociational democracies research project explored the relationship between the design of political power-sharing institutions and contention and mobilisation in relation to the census in four deeply divided societies: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, Lebanon and Northern Ireland. This data collection consists of transcripts from interviews with politicians, policy-makers and civil society representatives involved in organising and campaigning in relation to censuses in the four case-study countries, plus some additional interviews with respondents who had relevant insights into censuses elsewhere.This project investigated the politics of the census in societies that are deeply divided along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines, addressing some of the core themes in the RCUK Cross-Council Research Programme on Global Uncertainties. In societies that are emerging from violent conflict between different ethnic, religious or linguistic groups, peace is often maintained through an agreement that these groups will share power. One of the main ways in which agreement on such power sharing is reached is through the proportional allocation of roles in government, the civil service, the military and the police to members of the groups who have been in conflict. For example, the peace agreement might specify that a certain proportion of the parliament is reserved for members of a particular minority group. In order to assess what such proportionality looks like, though, an accurate census is required. The process of conducting a census in this context can be particularly challenging, especially when group leaders know that their share of political power is partly dependent on the results. This can result in intense debates about how census questions are worded, and the conduct of the census itself may be affected by campaigns to get respondents to answer questions in particular ways, in the belief that this will influence their political representation. This aspect of the politics of the census in deeply divided societies has not been studied in significant depth by social scientists, and as a result we know little about the relationship between the design of political institutions in these societies and the likelihood of the census becoming the subject of contentious political debates. This research project addressed this lack of knowledge through examining the politics of the census in four deeply divided societies: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Kenya and Lebanon. As part of the project, I conducted interviews with key policy-makers and civil society representatives in the four case-study countries as well as at international organisations and donor agencies, and analysed a large amount of written documents relating to censuses in the four case-study countries, including media coverage, consultation papers and responses, census committee minutes and papers from official archives.

Data was collected through use of semi-structured qualitative interviews. Respondents were identified initially through an online search for relevant people with experience of the census in each case-study country, and then through chain referral. The sample size was 50.