Technical Report Interviews round 1
Final version (January 20th, 2014)
1. Summary
The first round of interviews described in this report was the first fieldwork effort in the framework
of the INFOPOL project. The INFOPOL project is supported by the European Research Council
(Advanced Grant ‘INFOPOL’, N° 295735) and the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp (Grant
N° 26827). Stefaan Walgrave (University of Antwerp) is principal investigator of the INFOPOL project,
which has additional teams in Israel (led by Tamir Sheafer) and Canada (led by Peter Loewen).
The aim of the first round of interviews was to gather qualitative and quantitative data on the goals
and role conceptions of politicians, the way they get informed (exposure) and how they decide what
to pay attention to. The goal was to conduct a one-hour interview with at least 50 politicians (MPs,
party leaders and ministers) at the federal / national level in Canada, Belgium and Israel.
The interviews started with an online survey which was completed by the politician, followed by a
semi-structured interview. Often, the interview took place while the survey was being completed.
This was not originally anticipated, but decided upon during fieldwork since it improved the flow of
the interviews. All interviews were recorded. At the end of the interview, we asked politicians
whether they had personal staffers. If so, we asked whether we could interview one of their staffers.
If the politician agreed, that staffer was then recruited for the staffer survey (see the report for that
study for more information).
This report briefly describes the objectives of the study, and then extensively describes the methods
used: first, it addresses the populations and sampling procedures for the three countries, including
the contact procedures and timing of the fieldwork, and the settings of the interviews. Second, it
discusses response rates. Third, a number of issues related to the field work and that bear upon the
quality of the data are discussed. Finally, it lists the questionnaires that were used in the three
languages.
2. Objectives
From the outset, the team agreed to focus on the following topics in the interviews:
-
Which sources of information are politicians exposed to?
What factors determine which information is paid attention to?
What factors determine which information is acted upon?
What are the various goals and motivations of politicians?
3. Method
3.1 Population
The population of potential politicians to be interviewed consisted of
-
all Members of Parliament at the Federal / National level;
all Federal / National government ministers and secretaries of state, and the prime minister;
all party leaders of parties with elected representatives at the Federal / National level.
In Canada, the population thus consisted of 308 politicians, in Israel of 120 politicians and in Belgium
of 100 politicians (note that in Belgium, only national politicians of Flemish parties were part of the
population).
3.2 Sampling
The aim is to achieve a sample size of at least 50 politicians for each country. Belgium and Canada
planned to contact a stratified sample of politicians (stratified on seniority, party, and constituency).
In Israel all politicians were going to be contacted due to lower expected response rates.
In Belgium, a stratified sample of politicians was selected to be contacted first. However, due to the
fact that the contact sequence could sometimes take multiple weeks (see next section), this initial
sample was quickly exhausted – that is, all sampled politicians had been contacted at least once, yet
not all of them had committed to an interview or no date had been set. Because of this, the decision
was made very quickly to initiate contacts with all politicians in the population.
In Canada, also a stratified sample of 150 politicians (half of the total number of MPs) was selected
from the population. It proved impossible to include members of the government, so we focused on
former cabinet members instead.
Finally, Israel attempted to contact all politicians except for the PM and some other ministers
(security, finance, foreign affairs) whom the Israeli team estimated would be extremely challenging
to get their collaboration.
3.3 Contact Sequence and Timing
The contact sequence differed slightly between countries. However, all countries initiated contact
through a formalized letter to the politician. The full English contact letter can be found in Appendix
A. The letter contained information on the funding, the goals of the project, and a description of the
interview’s setup. Following this initial contact, the way in which the actual interview was arranged
depended on each country’s needs and best practices.
Belgium
In Belgium the letters were sent out on June 13th, 2013. A few days later, on June 18th, 2013 the
principal investigator (Stefaan Walgrave) started contacting politicians by telephone. After roughly
one month, the two Belgian post-docs also started contacting politicians. Contacting politicians
through telephone was quite effective in getting a hold of politicians; once a politician was reached,
three responses were common:
-
Acceptance to grant an interview: this was actually quite common. The telephone method
may have played a role here, since it is harder to refuse directly by phone compared to via email. In case of acceptance, we tried to immediately set a (preliminary) interview time and
date. If an acceptance was given, immediately a personalized email was sent to the politician
in which we thanked them for cooperating. If possible, the e-mail also served to confirm the
agreed interview time and date, and provide the actual interviewers’ contact data (e.g. cell
phone number).
-
-
Refusal: if a politician gave a hard refusal (e.g. “I do not want to cooperate”) the contact
procedure was aborted. However, many politicians gave soft refusals (e.g. “I am too busy”),
in which case we indicated that the interview lasted only an hour, could occur on a location
of the politicians’ choosing, and at any moment in the coming three months. These
counterarguments were quite effective, and a large amount of soft refusals were converted
to acceptances.
Request for more information: the information letter often did not reach the politician (e.g. it
was read by a staffer, but not passed on), so politicians were not always aware of the project
or its goals. In this case, a short description of the project was given, and immediately after
the telephone call an e-mail with the contact letter in pdf format attached was sent to the
politician.
For a substantial number of politicians, getting a hold of them was the key threshold. Actual hardrefusals were rare (11), but implicit refusals (e.g. not answering the phone after an initial contact, or
postponing the decision indefinitely) were more common. However, the team attempted a lot of
contacts with each politician to maximize the response rates (in many cases numerous messages
were left on voice mail systems), and a good number of these difficult to reach politicians eventually
agreed to an interview.
We ceased calling politicians we had not reached yet on September 18th, 2013. Politicians that we
had not been able to contact by then were marked as non-contacts. Of course, politicians that had
been reach by that time were followed up.
The interviews were conducted over multiple months. The first interview was conducted on June
26th, 2013. Almost all interviews were conducted by two interviewers, one senior (professor or postdoc) and one junior (Ph.D. student). For some exceptional cases, either one senior or two junior
researchers conducted the interview. Importantly, the PI conducted all interviews with high-ranking
politicians (ministers, party leaders and front benchers). Especially in the beginning of the fieldwork,
the senior interviewers took the lead during the interviews, though the role of the two interviewers
became more balanced as the fieldwork progressed. To account for the fact that the interviewers
might affect the answers of the politicians, the dataset contains variables that indicate which
interviewers conducted the interview.
After each interview, politicians received a small token of appreciation (bottle of wine with ‘thank
you’ card and Infopol-logo attached). This seemed to be appreciated, and might help in increasing
response rates on follow up research efforts.
The final interview was conducted on November 6th, 2013. Though initially fieldwork was not planned
to extend this long (3 months were expected), most of the final interviews were rescheduled multiple
times because the politician was unable to do the interview. This was in part due to the summer
break, in which many politicians were unavailable. This happened substantially more with highranking politicians (ministers and party leaders).
Israel
In Israel, initial contact took place on June 1st, 2013. First, personal letters were sent to each MK
(excluding the PM and some other non-reachable ministers), a few days later, the senior researcher
or one of the PhD's created a second contact by phone call.
Soon enough, we realized that the MK's gatekeepers ignored or simply discard the emails we sent,
and in cases we did get response for our e-mails, it usually was asking us to contact them again in the
future.
At this point we decided to change the way we contact MK's to a more direct one. We divided the
MK's list among the research group, based on personal connection to the MK or one of his staffers,
and then we contacted them directly by phone (to their office phone which is public or to their
private cell phone). In the conversation we introduced the research and immediately tried to set up a
date for interview. In most cases when we managed to reach the MK's, they agreed to participate
and told us to talk to their assistant in order to set a meeting (but yet, this consent did not promise a
meeting).
MK's who refused to participate in the research usually reacted in one of the following ways:
-
"Soft refusal" saying that they are overloaded with their parliamentary / other political
assignments, or saying that they will contact us / asking us to contact them in the far future.
Setting dates far into the future hoping we will give up the interview. Also in these cases we
persisted and tried to meet their request for a later date.
Ongoing postponements – setting dates for a meeting and then cancelling at the last
moment.
"total refusal" - Only a few MK's (7) gave as a harsh closing refusal, saying that they are not
interested in taking part in such research without specifying why.
Due to the low response rate of the Israeli politicians and the Knesset summer recess which was
followed immediately by the Jewish high holidays, we conducted the interviews from June 2013 till
February 2014. At the end of the process we reached a total of 36 MKs, including: 4 ministers, the
speaker of the Knesset, the head of the opposition and her successor and 5 party leaders (Labor,
Kadima, Meretz, Balad & Hadash).
Almost all interviews were conducted by two interviewers, one senior researcher (the PI or PhD
student) and one Master student. Interviews with high-ranking politicians such as Party leaders and
Ministers, were usually conducted by the PI and one of the PhD students. In other cases, due to the
strong connections of the PhD's with some of the MKs (Tal Shahaf was a political correspondent at
the Knesset. Yogev Karasenty served as a policy advisor at the PM office and wrote policy papers to
the Government and the Government Secretary), they conducted the interviews themselves.
Canada
In Canada, first contact was initiated through private meetings with the caucus chairs of the three
leading parties. The caucus chairs of the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Party pledged to
formally and actively support our research and contact efforts while the Conservative Party Caucus
would not actively support us, but would not prevent us from contacting its members directly.
Letters were then sent out in two different waves from November 27, 2013 onwards; a first batch to
50 conservative and 50 NDP and Liberal MPS, and a second wave to the following 50 conservative
MPs. A few days later, on December 2nd, the principal investigators (Stuart Soroka, Peter Loewen)
and the postdoctoral researcher (Jeroen Joly) started contacting politicians by telephone. Direct
contact with politicians was mostly established through their office in Ottawa in their own main
language. First contacts almost never directly resulted in appointments and several phone calls were
often needed before obtaining a meeting and the three following responses were most common:
-
-
-
Request for more information: most Canadian MPs have several staffers working for them –
both in Ottawa and in their constituency. Communication among them regarding our
meeting request was often not optimal. Hence, the first telephone conversation most often
resulted in a request to resend our information letter to a different email account, which
would then require follow up. We would then immediately resend the initial personalized
information to the appropriate person in charge of the MP’s agenda.
Immediate acceptance to grant an interview: such responses were fairly uncommon. In a
very limited number of cases, staffers would respond to our emails before we would even
call them to confirm that the MP was interested in collaborating with us. Similarly, only few
MPs (or rather their staffers) would immediately respond positively to our request for a
meeting over the phone. In those instances, a meeting was immediately set up and a
confirmation email was sent with information regarding the exact date and location of the
interview
Refusal: hard refusals occurred in response to our initial email, but were most common over
the phone at the first telephonic contact. Most MPs refused during follow-up. These were
mostly soft refusals due to agenda restraints (e.g. parliamentary recess). In those instances,
we tried to accommodate the MP by offering alternative dates or locations (in the
constituency). In most of those cases, however, we were unfortunately not able to obtain a
meeting after all, despite thorough follow up.
We ceased calling politicians we had not reached yet in May, 2014. Politicians that we had not been
able to contact by then were marked as non-contacts. Of course, politicians that had been reach by
that time were followed up.
The interviews were conducted over multiple months. The first interview was conducted on
December 4th, 2013. Almost all interviews were conducted by one single interviewer, and most
interviews were conducted by a senior member of the team (professor or post-doc) or an
experienced interviewer (Ph.D. student). Interviewers were chosen in function of the language of the
MP and interviewer agendas.
The last interview was conducted on May 13th, 2014. For geographic reasons (the large distance
between Ottawa and Montreal, and especially between Ottawa and Toronto), as well as frequent
parliamentary recesses, it was planned to conduct the interviews over an extended period of time (6
months). For practical reasons, the goal was to regroup a maximum of interviews during those days
were a researcher was in Ottawa and to interview all MPs close to Montreal and Toronto in their
constituency.
3.4 Interview contexts
Belgium
The interviews took place wherever and whenever the politician wanted. Because Belgium is a
relatively small country, it was feasible to send interviewers to politicians’ home if needed, although
the majority of interviews took place in the ‘House of Representatives’, which is next to the
parliament. In general, the interviews took place in appropriate locations – that is, locations without
too much background noise, and where the politician and the interviewers could sit alone for the
duration of the interview.
Two exceptions to this should be noted. First, in some instances the staffer of the politician attended
the interview. This did not occur often, and it never seemed to be much of an issue. If the staffer
took an active role during the interview, the interviewers reminded that it was the politicians’
answers we were interested in. The staffers mostly helped the politician recall a specific fact, but did
not in fact answer in the politicians’ place. Second, due to circumstances some interview contexts
were less than ideal. A few interviews had to be conducted in a public place (e.g. bar or restaurant)
because of unforeseen circumstances or because the politician wanted this. The key issue here is that
the audio recordings sometimes suffered due to the background noise. In terms of the politicians’
answers we feel there was no effect: they seemed at ease, and because we were able to sit
somewhat secluded we do not expect that they would have answered differently in a different
setting.
Israel
In Israel, due to the very tight timetable of the politicians and In order to increase the likelihood of
their participation in the research, we have met with them whenever and wherever they could meet.
Although the vast majority of the interviews took place at the Knesset, in some cases when there was
no other option, we have met with MK's at their privet offices or in their official offices outside
Jerusalem.
At the Knesset, most of the interviews took place at the MK’s office which provided a peaceful
environment, where the politician and the interviewers could sit alone for the duration of the
interview. In other cases, the interviews took place at the MK's dining room during plenary voting,
this was not ideal, but to the best of our judgment, it did not affect the quality or the sincerity of the
responses we got. The same is true for staffers' presence, in some cases staffers were present during
the interviews, but they never intervened in the answers or affected the interview intimate
atmosphere.
Canada
The majority of Canadian interviews were conducted in MPs’ offices in Ottawa, close to Parliament. A
fair number also took place in constituency offices, mostly in and around Montreal. It was up to the
politician to decide which location and time was most convenient for them. Most interviews were
one on one interviews with the MPs. Exceptionally, a staffer also discretely attended the meeting.
Staffers never actively participated in any of the interviews.
Interviews took place in almost ideal conditions. In one exceptional case, the interview had to be
conducted in a corner of the hallways of Parliament. Nevertheless, this did not prevent going through
the entire interview and obtaining spontaneous answers.
3.5 Response rates
Type of response
Interviews conducted
Refusals
Non-contacts
Total N
Response rate
Belgium
87
11
2
100
87%
Canada
43
105
45
150
29%
Israel
36
84
16
120
30%
3.6 Transcription and coding of interview recordings
All interviews were recorded. After the interviews were conducted, the entire recordings were
transcribed by students. These students signed a clause that confined them to strict secrecy about
the content of the interviews outside of the research environment. In contrast to the survey data set,
the raw transcriptions will not be made available due to anonymity concerns. Requests to access
these data should be made to the principal investigator (Stefaan Walgrave).
3.7 Field work issues
As with any study, during the field work a number of issues were encountered. These are discussed
on a country-per-country basis since the specific context caused different issues, though some were
present in all countries.
Belgium
- Internet connectivity problems. The Qualtrics survey software required an active internet
connection on the tablet, but sometimes internet connectivity was not good enough to allow
a smooth interview. For example, when waiting times between questions exceeded one
minute, this hampered the flow of the interview, or even annoyed politicians. It was up to
the interviewers to decide what to do.
In two cases, internet connectivity was extremely bad and the survey could not be completed
during the interview. Both politicians were sent customized Internet links and completed the
survey afterwards.
In two other cases, the interviewers decided to switch to the pen and paper version midinterview. In the dataset, these cases are tracked in the dataset by means of a variable that
indicates the first question that was completed using pen and paper.
- Interviewing during Qualtrics survey: During the field work in Belgium, it was decided to
allow interviewers to ask questions during, or politicians to comment on, the closed Qualtrics
survey. Although at the outset the closed survey was not meant to be used for interviewing,
oftentimes this felt extremely awkward in the actual interview setting. Also, asking follow up
questions (e.g. Why did you answer this? Can you give an example?) helped explain and
understand some of the answers of the closed survey. However, in some cases the first part
took an extensive amount of time leaving more limited space for the last part which included
the semi-structured interview.
Israel
- Internet connectivity problems. The Qualtrics survey required an active internet connection
on the tablet, but sometimes internet connectivity was not good enough to allow a smooth
interview. In order to solve this problem we geared each of the tablets with cellular simcards
which usually solved the problem. In other cases of connectivity problems or computer
failure we switched to hard copy questionnaires during the interview and uploaded the data
to the Qualtrics later on that day.
- Hardware problems. In three cases we had a hardware problem when the iPad suddenly
stopped responding half way through the interview. In those cases we either switched to
another iPad or to paper. At the end of each of those interviews we restored the first part of
the MK's answers and coded into Qualtrics.
- Software problems. In a couple of cases we had a problem with the Qualtrics Hebrew
version, which suddenly changed and made the text unreadable or dislocated. Our solution
to these cases was again switching to hardcopy and feeding the answers later on.
- During the first set of interviews, we noticed politicians responding badly (refused to answer
or simply guessed) to the k‐level reasoning question, and to the framing question. We raised
that issue to the entire staff to discover the Belgian team experienced a similar problem after
which it was agreed upon to remove the K-level question out of the questionnaire.
- As to the survey in general, many MKs said that they feel that the questions are biased
towards election systems with regional constituencies. In response we ask them to ignore
the bias or to regard the entire country as one constituency zone.
- Overall we felt that the MKs found the questionnaire interesting and some even used it to do
some kind of reflection on their parliamentary work.
Canada
- Internet connectivity problems. The Qualtrics survey required an active internet connection
on the tablet. To ensure internet connectivity, each of the tablets was provided with a
cellular simcard. Since no connectivity or other technical problems occurred, interviewers
never had to switch to a hard copy.
- Hardware problems. No hardware problems occurred.
- Software problems No software problems occurred.
- The survey served as the basis for an actual interview. MPs were approached for an interview
meeting and more open, and in-depth, questions were asked as follow-up to survey
questions. The extra information provided by politicians was very useful as background
information and in understanding the reasons and motives behind certain answers or even
trends in answers.
- Overall, most MPs seemed to enjoy the meeting and expressed that they found the
questionnaire very interesting and a nice way to reflect on their role and work in Parliament.
3.8 Questionnaire
Questionnaires were kept as constant as possible for all politicians. Two factors caused variations in
the questionnaire: (1) the type of politician (member of parliament, party leader or minister), and (2)
the country. Regarding the type of politician, not all questions or answering categories were relevant
to ask for the same types of politicians. E.g. a question on parliamentary initiatives is not relevant for
party leaders. However, these differences were minor. In the questionnaire we indicate when a
question was omitted or formulated differently for a specific type of politician. Differences between
countries also exist since the institutional context differs substantially between the cases. Again, we
indicate in the questionnaire which questions were formulated differently between countries.
One question was dropped from the survey not long after starting the Belgian fieldwork. In the
original version a K-level reasoning question was included, but it quickly became apparent that the
politicians did not really understand it at first glance. Moreover they did not take their time to think it
through as was needed and gave low quality responses to it. Moreover the question took time to
read and seemed to be unpleasant to some respondents, so it was dropped.
The interview had two main parts: first, a closed survey completed by the politician. For this first part
the Qualtrics software for survey research was used. This was followed by an open-ended interview.
Qualtrics survey
After a short introduction, which mentioned anonymity guarantees and asked for permission to
record the interview, the interviewer asked the politician to complete a Qualtrics survey on an iPad.
Though the initial part of the interview was a survey, respondents were encouraged to comment on
questions in between; as a result, most of the survey itself gave rise to additional follow-up questions
by interviewers and the survey part and the interview part were mixed.
After a brief introduction screen, the actual questionnaire began. Every question was displayed on a
separate screen. The report only includes the English version of the questionnaire, but any
differences between languages are also mentioned.
1. Do you read most of your information on paper (e.g. printed reports, notes) or through
digital means (e.g. email, online)?
Everything on paper
Everything through digital media
|__________________________________________|
2. To what extent do you feel overwhelmed by the information you receive on a daily basis?
Not overwhelmed
Overwhelmed
|__________________________________________|
3. To what extent do you think that other politicians feel overwhelmed?
Not overwhelmed
|__________________________________________|
Overwhelmed
4. What features of information make you take action (e.g. ask a staff member to follow up
on it, write a press release, and so on)? Please indicate for the following features how
much they matter to you.
Doesn’t matter at all
Deals with something that is
important for my voters.
Deals with something that is
important for my constituency.
Can be used to generate positive
attention for my party.
Can help me realize reelection or a
higher position.
Can help me realize my policy goals.
Deals with an issue that my party is
specialized in.
Can be used to generate negative
attention for another party.
Has a lot of potential to gather media
attention for me and my party.
Deals with an issue that I am
specialized in.
Matters very much
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
|____________________________________|
5. Information can take different forms, and it can deal with different topics. Please use the
bars to indicate your preference for each feature
Information that is useful
Information that is useful
in the short term
in the long term
|____________________________________________________________________|
Information that contains
Information that contains
only facts
only opinions
|____________________________________________________________________|
Information that is very
Information that is very
specialized
general
|____________________________________________________________________|
Information about an issue
Information about an
that is already on the
issue that is not yet on
agenda
the agenda
|____________________________________________________________________|
6. Please rank the following types of information by order of their importance to your work.
Drag the answers to change their ranking.
□ Information on new policy issues
□ Information on your constituency
□ Information related to your responsibilities as a member of parliament
□ Information on political developments and events
□ Information on ongoing policy issues you are interested in
7. How frequently do you check the following sources of information?
Multiple
times per
hour
Once an
hour
Multiple
times per
day
Once per
day
Less than
once per
day
Never
Twitter
News websites
Email
Social
media
(Facebook,
Linked in,…)
News agency
Print
newspapers
TV
news
broadcasts
Radio news
8. Of the initiatives you personally raised in Parliament or in government last year (e.g.
motions for the agenda, bills, written and oral questions), roughly what percentage were
inspired by the following:
Interest and action groups
………%
Personal experience
………%
Meeting with individual citizens
………%
Within the party (e.g. leadership, research center)
………%
The media
………%
Other
………%
9. Of the initiatives you personally raised in caucus in the last year, roughly what percentage
were inspired by the following:
Interest and action groups
………%
Personal experience
………%
Meeting with individual citizens
………%
Within the party (e.g. leadership, research center)
………%
The media
………%
Other
………%
10. Please rank the following tasks according to their importance to you as a politician. Drag
the tasks to change their order:
□ Looking after the collective social and economic needs of my local area
□
□
□
Influencing government policy
Liaising between members of the parliamentary party and the party leadership and
managing Parliament’s business
Providing assistance to individual voters in their dealings with public authorities
11. Some politicians specialize in one or two policy areas, while others prefer to speak and act
upon a wide range of issues from different policy areas. Where would you place yourself
on the following scale?
I focus on one issue
I focus on a wide range of issues
|____________________________________________________________________|
12. How important is it to you, personally, to promote the views and interests of the following
groups of people?
Very unimportant
Unimportant
Important
Very important
All the people in
my constituency
All people in my
region
A specific group
in society
All the people
who voted for me
All people in the
country
All the people
who voted for my
party
My party
13. If you were to decide to stand at the next general election, how confident do you feel that
you would be renominated by your party?
o I would surely win the nomination contest
o I would probably win the nomination contest
o It could go either way
o I would probably lose the nomination contest
o I would surely lose the nomination contest
14. If you were to decide to stand at the next general election, how confident do you feel that
you would be re-elected?
o I would surely be elected
o I would probably be elected
o It could go either way
o
o
I would probably not be elected
I would surely not be elected
15. If it was up to you, where would you like to be five years from now? Tick as many as
applies.
Belgium
□ A cabinet member in a
provincial government
□ A cabinet member in the
Federal government
□ Working in the non-profit
sector
□ A Member of the Federal
Parliament
□ A Member of the Flemish
parliament
□ A member of the European
parliament
□ Working in business
□ Mayor
□ Working for a public agency
□ Retired from public life
□ A member of a provincial
legislature
□ Senator
□ Other
Canada
Israel
□ A cabinet member in a
provincial government
□ A cabinet member in the
Federal government
□ Working in the non-profit
sector
□ A Member of Parliament
□ Working in business
□ Mayor
□ Working for a public agency
□ Retired from public life
□ A member of a provincial
legislature
□ Senator
□ Other
16. Politicians need to balance between different goals. What do you think is the right balance
a politician should have on the following issues:
Represent the views of
Represent their party
citizens and transform
platform and gain the
them into policy as
public’s support for it.
accurately as possible.
|____________________________________________________________________|
Resist the demands of
Take into account other
other interests and keep to
interests.
1
the party line .
|____________________________________________________________________|
17. How do you get informed about current affairs? Please tell us the three information
sources that are most important to you:
1. …………………………………………………
2. …………………………………………………
3. …………………………………………………
1
Note that in Belgium, this item was translated as ‘neglect’ other interests, which might have caused politicians
to refrain from choosing this option.
18. Please tell us the three most important issues for you as a politician:
1. …………………………………………………
2. …………………………………………………
3. …………………………………………………
19. How do you get informed about the three top issues you have indicated? Please mark the
three channels most important to these issues.
□ Federal bureaucrats
□ Social media
□ Individual citizens
□ Industry associations
□ Personal contacts
□ Politicians from other parties
□ My political party
□ Scientific institutions
□ Mass media
□ Parliamentary officers, e.g. Library of Parliament, PBO
□ Politicians from my own party
□ Interest groups
20. For the following question, we’d like to know about how you make decisions and about the
kinds of decisions that you make.
[Note: politicians were randomly assigned to one of four conditions]
Condition A:
Canada/Belgium/Israel is planning for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected
to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed and
are brought up for vote in the Healt Committee, and you are a member of the committee.
The exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the program is as follows:
If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
If program B is adopted, there is a 33% probability that 600 people will be saved, and 66%
probability that no people will be saved.
Which of the two programs do you favour?
□
□
Program A
Program B
Condition B:
Canada/Belgium/Israel is planning for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected
to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed and
are brought up for vote in the Healt Committee, and you are a member of the committee.
The exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the program is as follows:
If program A is adopted, 400 people will die.
If program B is adopted, there is a 33% probability that nobody will die, and 66% probability
that 600 people will die.
Which of the two programs do you favour?
□
□
Program A
Program B
Condition C:
Imagine that the US is planning for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is
expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been
proposed.
The exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the program is as follows:
If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
If program B is adopted, there is a 33% probability that 600 people will be saved, and 66%
probability that no people will be saved.
Which of the two programs do you favour?
□
□
Program A
Program B
Condition D:
Imagine that the US is planning for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is
expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been
proposed.
The exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the program is as follows:
If program A is adopted, 400 people will die.
If program B is adopted, there is a 33% probability that nobody will die, and 66% probability
that 600 people will die.
Which of the two programs do you favour?
□
□
Program A
Program B
Open Interview
After completion of the survey, a semi-structured open interview ensued. Below are the five
questions.
1. The survey contained a number of questions on your goals and motivations. Can you try to
explain, in your own words, which aspect of your work as a politician gives you the most
satisfaction?
2. We already mentioned several information properties that might cause you to spend more or
less attention on it. Can you explain what makes information interesting for you?
- How important is the source of the information?
3. Can you describe what the role of the party is in your work, what you do, and what you pay
attention to?
4. How many personal staffers do you have?
5. Can you describe what their role is, and what they do?
Appendix A: Contact Letter (English)
To Mr./Ms. xxx
xxx
xxx
UW KENMERK
ONS KENMERK
Collaboration Research INFOPOL
DATUM
27 February 2013
BIJLAGE
Questions
Prof. dr. Stefaan Walgrave
Department Political Science
University of Antwerp
Sint-Jacobsstraat 2
B-2000 Antwerpen
Dear Sir/ Madam,
As you probably know from personal experience, politicians are confronted with enormous amounts
of information. Recently, a European Research Council project (ERC; http://erc.europa.eu), named
INFOPOL, started at the University of Antwerp. The project compares information processing
routines of high-ranking politicians in Belgium, Canada and Israel. The aim of this project is to
investigate how politicians manage to distinguish important from unimportant information, which
type of information takes priority, and which information politicians act upon.
We study these processes from the viewpoint of the individual politician, and not from an outsiders’
perspective. We want to understand, for the very first time, how politicians themselves perceive and
experience the daily struggle with tons of information. To that end, I want to kindly ask you whether
you would be willing to participate in an interview of about one hour. Enclosed is a document
answering some questions you might have about our research: How did I get selected? What does
the research entail? And what about the anonymity and the confidentiality of my answers?
Shortly, I will contact you by phone to give you more information about the study and to answer
further questions. You can, of course, contact me in the meantime with any question or comment.
(coordinates added below). More information about the project is also available on our website
www.infopol-project.eu.
I truly hope you will participate in our important project. It will enhance our understanding of how
politicians work, how they represent society, and how they get informed about the problems in
society. Your participation is indispensable to turn it into a success!
Yours truly,
Prof. Dr. Stefaan Walgrave
Research group M²P (www.M2P.be)
University of Antwerp
0471/55 21 31 - stefaan.walgrave@ua.ac.be
www.infopol-project.eu
Questions concerning the research
What is INFOPOL?
INFOPOL is a research project focusing on how politicians in three countries deal with information
coming from their societies. The research covers Belgium (University of Antwerp – Stefaan Walgrave
as principal investigator), but also Israel (Hebrew University) and Canada (McGill University and
University of Toronto). The aim of the project is to analyze how high-ranking politicians (members of
parliament, party leaders and ministers) in the three countries prioritize the problems they deal with
and what role incoming societal information plays in that process. The research project is generously
funded by a rare and prestigious Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC;
http://erc.europa.eu). The project will generate unique data on the connection between politics and
society.
How did I get selected?
In each country—also in Belgium where we only cover Dutch-speaking politicians from the federal
level—we look for fifty top politicians who are prepared to share with us how they deal with
information. We drew a random sample of fifty Belgian politicians and you are part of that sample.
The more people of our original sample refuse to collaborate, the less representative our findings risk
to be.
What does the research entail for me, personally?
Your collaboration would imply that you would be contacted shortly for an interview of about one
hour. The interview would be held at a convenient place and time for you during one of the coming
months (June-September). It will be partially based on closed questions (survey format) followed by a
number of open questions. We will, for example, ask you about your most important source of
information or to which kinds of information you give most attention. Of the interview you will be
given a written transcript for rectification and ratification. At the end of the interview, we will ask
you whether you would be willing to participate in some of the next steps of our research. Of course,
you can refuse.
Will I be informed about the results?
You will, of course, be informed about the outcome of the study when it is completed. We will send
you a report containing an executive summary with the key findings. These results could be of great
use for your daily routine concerning information processing as they will inform you about your
colleagues’ information-seeking behavior and will put your own routine into perspective. The
European Research Council (ERC) funds research that is driven by fundamental questions, not by
applied questions. Yet, we expect the research to contribute to the current debate on the quality of
representation and democracy in general. We anticipate it may lead to policy changes, for example in
further professionalizing the support (staff) politicians get to help them process information.
What about anonymity and confidentiality of the data?
We understand that being interviewed about your work as a politician can be threatening. Therefore,
INFOPOL incorporates a host of measures that ensure anonymity and confidentiality. These
measures have been screened by the Ethical Boards of the three participating universities in the
three countries and correspond to the most stringent norms of social-scientific research. All
measures below have also been screened according to the very strict rules of the European Research
Council (ERC).
The core of the matter is that the data that you personally provide to us will never be made public in
a way that may lead to personal identification. We elaborate briefly on these measures:
 Potential participants (you) are briefed about the goal and procedure of the study. This is
accomplished by this letter but also by the aforementioned phone call the principal
investigator hopes to have with you shortly.
 As soon as the data are collected, they are stored in an anonymous format: the answers you
provide are stored separately from any identifying information, making it impossible to trace
answers back to you personally. Only one researcher in the Belgian INFOPOL team at the
University of Antwerp will be able to trace the data back to individuals. This is necessary to
be able to connect other data.
 The anonymized data will be encrypted as well. This means that they can only be read when
providing a password so that only INFOPOL researchers have access. The INFOPOL
researchers are all knowledgeable about the absolute requisite of anonymity and
confidentiality and they have signed a special confidentiality agreement with their employer
(University of Antwerp).
 INFOPOL and its researchers will never inform third parties about the fact that you
participate in the INFOPOL research. Your participation is confidential and secret.
 Research and reporting of the results will always be done based on aggregate data across
participants and never drawing on individual data. Even when providing examples,
researchers will make sure that it is impossible to retrace specific evidence to you personally.
 At the end of the study (2017), all personal information will be destroyed. Even so, the
anonymized dataset will still be password-protected. The data can, at that stage, be used by
other researchers outside of INFOPOL but these individuals must ask for access via a written
request procedure and the decision to grant access is taken by the principal investigator
personally. In any case, and again, your answers will never be traced back to you personally.
‫‪Appendix B: contact letter Israel (Hebrew).‬‬
‫‪12/17/2012‬‬
‫לכבוד‪,‬‬
‫הנדון‪ :‬פרויקט מחקר בינלאומי ‪ -‬עיבוד מידע וקבלת החלטות ע"י פוליטיקאים‬
‫שלום רב‪,‬‬
‫ברצוננו לבקש את הסכמתך להתייעץ אתך בעניין פרויקט ‪ ,INFOPOL‬פרויקט מחקר אקדמי בינלאומי‪ ,‬העוסק‬
‫בדרכי עיבוד המידע וקבלת ההחלטות של פוליטיקאים‪ .‬בשלב זה של הפרוייקט אנו עוסקים בשרטוט קווי המתאר‬
‫של המחקר ובחינת הדרכים הנאותות לביצועו ולשם כך אנו מבקשים להיעזר במספר מומחים‪ ,‬פוליטיקאים ואנשי‬
‫אקדמיה‪ ,‬שיכולים לסייע מניסיונם והיכרותם את המערכת הפוליטית‪.‬‬
‫פרויקט המחקר ‪ INFOPOL‬נערך בעת ובעונה אחת בישראל‪ ,‬בקנדה ובבלגיה על ידי חוקרים בכירים באוניברסיטה‬
‫העברית בירושלים‪ ,‬אוניברסיטת ‪ UA‬באנטוורפן‪ ,‬אוניברסיטת ‪ McGill‬במונטריאול ואוניברסיטת ‪UTM‬‬
‫בטורונטו‪ .‬המחקר זכה למענקי מחקר משמעותיים מטעם האיחוד האירופי ואנו צופים כי יוביל להבנה טובה יותר‬
‫של המערכת הפוליטית ושל חשיבות עבודתם של הפוליטיקאים‪ .‬בהמשך צירפנו רקע קצר על המחקר‪ ,‬ממנו ניתן‬
‫ללמוד על חשיבותו לחקר הדמוקרטיה וחקר הפוליטיקה בישראל‪.‬‬
‫נשמח אם תמצאי לנכון לסייע למחקר‪ .‬לשם כך אנו מבקשים לראיין אותך במשך כשעה בנושאים שונים הקשורים‬
‫לעבודת הפוליטיקאים ולדרכים הנאותות לחקור ולנתח אותה‪ .‬ראיונות דומים מתקיימים בימים אלה עם מומחים‬
‫בכירים בשלוש המדינות המשתתפות במחקר‪ .‬נשמח לעמוד לרשותך בכל שאלה או הצעה‪.‬‬
‫בכבוד רב‪,‬‬
‫פרופ' תמיר שפר‬
‫מרכז פרויקט ‪ INFOPOL‬ישראל‬
‫האוניברסיטה העברית‬
‫אודות מחקר ‪INFOPOL‬‬
‫איך השחקנים הפוליטיים יודעים מהן הבעיות בחברה? איך הם מגבשים פתרונות אפשריים לבעיות אלה? איך הם‬
‫מזהים את עמדות האזרחים בעניינים אלה? מדובר בשאלות מרכזיות בחקר הדמוקרטיה‪ .‬מטרת המחקר היא ללמוד‬
‫ולנתח את תבניות זרימת המידע אל הפוליטיקאים‪ ,‬תהליך סינון המידע והענקת תשומת לב לחלק ממנו‪ ,‬ובסופו‬
‫של דבר בחלק מהמקרים גם ייזום פעולות על בסיס מידע זה‪ .‬מהם הגורמים הקובעים את מידת ההיענות של‬
‫הפוליטיקאים? האם הם תורמים לחיזוקה את הדמוקרטיה או שמא לערעורה? לראשונה במחקר זה נבחן תהליך‬
‫עיבוד המידע של הפוליטיקאי הבודד באופן יש יר ומעמיק‪ ,‬תוך השוואה בין פוליטיקאים בשלוש מדינות בעלות‬
‫מערכות פוליטיות שונות‪ ,‬ובין בעלי תפקידים שונים במערכת הפוליטית‪.‬‬
‫המחקר יוצא לדרך בימים אלה‪ ,‬ובשלב זה של גיבוש מערך המחקר אנו עורכים ראיונות עם מומחים‪ ,‬פוליטיקאים‬
‫ואנשי אקדמיה היכולים לסייע לנו מניסיונם‪ .‬המידע שייאסף במסגרת מחקר פיילוט זה ישמש כרקע למחקר‬
‫המרכזי והמרואיינים אינם חלק מהאוכלוסייה הנחקרת‪--‬אוכלוסייה המורכבת מפוליטיקאים מכהנים‪ .‬שמות‬
‫המרואיינים לא יתפרסמו זולת אם יוסכם אחרת‪.‬‬
‫צוות המחקר כולל כ‪ 15-‬חוקרים מארבע אוניברסיטאות בשלוש מדינות‪ ,‬ומובילים אותו פרופ' ‪Stefaan Walgrave‬‬
‫מאוניברסיטת אנטוורפן בבלגיה‪ ,‬פרופ' תמיר שפר מהאוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים‪ ,‬ופרופ' ‪Stuart Soroka‬‬
‫מאוניברסיטת מק'גיל בקנדה‪.‬‬
‫ליצירת קשר‬
‫פרופ' תמיר שפר ‪msstamir@huji.ac.il 052-2861501‬‬
‫מר יוגב קרסנטי ‪yogevkty@gmail.com 052-5272383‬‬
‫מר טל שחף ‪tal.shahaf@mail.huji.ac.il 050-3396060‬‬