An introduction to election commentaries: the responsibilities of social scientists around elections

Kotuitui is sponsoring a series of election commentaries. These aim to bring to the attention of the public issues on which social sciences light should be thrown. This introduction frames the commentaries by providing a discussion of the responsibilities of social scientists around the election period.

The first responsibility of social scientists towards elections is to not become involved in a partisan way favouring a particular party. And while not as ‘sacred’ as judicial decision-making as a topic for investigation elections must be approached with care and respect. Social scientists may of course (and undoubtedly should) become involved in elections in their personal capacities – and indeed, there may be some tension between these. Examples of social scientists who have stood for Parliament include sociologists such as the late Dame Margaret Shields and Steve Maharey, political scientists such as Phil Goff, Helen Clark and economists such as Bill English. (An interesting research topic would be the ways in which such politicians draw on their social science backgrounds to what effect.)

A most important task is to study elections with the objective of making them better meet policy desiderata. There needs to be monitoring of why people vote and do not vote and which of alternative modes of voting people might find more user-friendly. Non-vote has been a concern that has often been addressed (see for example McVey and Vowles 2005; Iusitini & Crothers 2013; Vowles et al. 2017). Mode of voting has also been examined (eg Crothers 2015) and the net of scholarly interest has also been extended to the experiences of parties, candidates and so on (although recent study of candidates seems unfortunately confined to local government: see Auckland Council 2017 cf. Lundberg and Miller’s (2014) 2011 study). Candidates are often polled by interest groups to document their views on issues (eg Howard League date unknown). Relevant literature on these issues includes the useful post-election documentation volumes (eg Johansson and Levine 2015). Some of this work is sponsored by the Election Commission (see date unknown) which particularly sponsors shorter term evaluations of the details of voting processes. (In the past the Commission had also researched Understanding of MMP and Participation Research.)

One pertinent area is the overlap between market research and social science. Polls are important and legitimate feedback devices which allow some tracking of how parties and leaders are faring in the public mind and what issues assail people. (Public release of such data is important as otherwise key information would remain restricted to political parties.) Polling is mainly sponsored by the media or political parties with some occasional academic involvement, and is concerned to monitor voter sentiment over time (for NZ polling data see Wikipedia date unknown). Questions covered can include party voting support, leadership support, assessment of the direction of the country (or economy) and most important problem (MIP). Unfortunately polling varies enormously in quality and standards needs to be met. See the code issued by the Research Association NZ (date unknown) – http://www.mrsnz.org.nz/Resources/Documents/Political%20Polling%20Code%202014.pdf. Push-polling is discouraged by the Electoral Commission and election survey results must not be published on polling day. As experts on polling social scientists might act as referees – The NZ Statistics Association has a Survey appraisal and public questions committee to whom ‘complaints’ could be addressed (http://www.stats.org.nz/committees/sapqc). Duncan (2017: See also Roy Morgan 2017) reviews recent polling data in the course of his review of pre-election issues.

A recent development has been voting advice applications (for an international review: see Garzia et al. 2017). Vote Compass is a media-academic alliance which has attracted much attention from voters and is scheduled to be repeated for 2017 (for 2014 results see Lees-Marshment et al. 2015). This exercise involves establishing what party platforms are across a series of issues and then asking respondents to vote on each. Results are released episodically through the media during the campaign. A Massey University team is carrying out two online selection surveys through STUFF and have already released results: see Massey University (date unknown). Given the large attention such exercises draw, academic critique is warranted.

It is pertinent to know what the effect is of the release of polling results on people’s views. Vowles (2002) investigates this but finds there is no discernible effect, although perhaps this analysis needs to be updated.

A further task, even a duty, for social scientists is to put before the public scholarly the understandings and data pertinent to the issues facing the public, for those members of the public interested in availing themselves of such ‘advice’. The topics on which advice might be proffered might be those identified by MIP questions as particularly concerning the public. (Of course, offering advice might be seen by some as elitist.) If provided there is a particular duty to present the state of knowledge carefully and clearly, which is how the commentaries in this ‘symposium’ have been developed (for a very useful set of commentaries see Boston 2017).