The macro-level analysis draws on a body of more than 2000 relevant ministerial documents available at the Institutional Repository for the Government over the period studied. Content analyses will be conducted on government programmes, key policy programmes and steering documents.
Politicians’ understandings of major changes in inter-institutional relations and societal responsibilities will, in addition to the elite survey (see below), be scrutinized with the help of the collection of interviews available at the Library of the Finnish Parliament. Globally unique in its scope, the collection covers ca. 425 in-depth, thematic interviews with senior/former MPs from 1988 onwards.
In spring 2022 DemGo will conduct a value survey (elite survey) of the senior officials in the central administration and the members of parliament conducted by DemGo.
Benchmarking the European Values Study (EVS), the electronic survey measures social and political values, attitudes and behavior, allowing for comparisons between elites and citizens regarding political trust, public legitimacy and public values.
A partly compatible survey is also conducted at micro-level targeting, which result in comparable value maps based partly on our postmodern index. As compatible data will be available at three levels (societal, elite and micro-level cases), the design enables multi-level analysis as a technique applied to hierarchical or nested data structures (work packages 4 and 5).
Based on the content analysis described above, work package 2 and 5 will include in-depth case studies.
The case studies primarily draw on a selection of multijurisdictional governmental project platforms, available at the open project database of the Government.
Particular focus is on designated solutions for coordination, collaboration and digitalization created by the projects.
The combination of social network analysis (WP 5) and in-depth case studies conducted will show the interaction between involved actors and the coherence between the disparate range of designated solutions with respect to democratic qualities.
DemGo will benefit from extensive Nordic and international collaborations of the project members. Leading international, particularly Nordic, scholars in the field will be invited to assess the international significance of the main findings.
Benchmarking activities include visits to Sweden and New Zealand, and benchmarking is planned also with Denmark, i.e. countries with similar reforms although in another institutional context.
The results will be presented at an international workshop arranged by DemGo.