POLPOP 2025 Data Collection
Two people in an interview, with interviewing pad

Image by Jirapong(Adobe Stock).

In 2025, the POLPOP project will be undertaking a second wave of data collection. 


Project Title: How politicians evaluate public opinion
 

General Outline of the Project
 

1. Description and Methodology

The goal of this project is to understand how politicians understand public opinion and whether politicians’ ideas about representation match voters’ ideas. We want to understand this in the Australian context, and to see how Australia compares with our partner investigator countries overseas (see below for a full list). In order to do so, the project includes two components: a survey of public opinion and qualitative interviews related to the survey.

2. Participants 

Our goal is to interview 100 elected politicians in the Australian Parliament. 

3. Use of Data and Feedback

Information from these interviews will be used for education and academic purposes (including publication and conference presentations). All published findings will be posted on this publicly available Australian National University webpage. If requested, participants will be notified when research outputs are published and where they may be obtained.


4. Project Funding 

The study is financed by the European Research Council through the Advanced ERC grant (POLEVPOP, grant 101018105) awarded to Prof. Dr. Stefaan Walgrave from the University of Antwerp. Prof Walgrave is the overall project lead.

5. Research Team

The team is led by Dr Marija Taflaga and Professor Patrick Dumont (The Australian National University) and Professor Annika Werner (University of Southampton). We are part of a European Research Council funded international project, examining how politicians understand public opinion. Our team is one of 14 national teams working together to understand how politicians evaluate public opinion.

6. Participant Involvement

Participation in this project is entirely voluntary. Participants will be asked about aspects of their day-to-day work as an MP and their views on a range of public policy debates. The interview format consists of mostly structured questions, with some semi-structured questions. Interviews are expected to last about 45 minutes to 1 hour and will be conducted in person, via Zoom or on the telephone.


For the complete terms and conditions, please download the participant information sheet here. 

 

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