LocationsBeyond the ballot: The case for rigorous statistics on political participation
October 23, 2024
Reliable data is crucial for designing policies that encourage broader participation in elections and other democratic processes.
2024 is a historic year for democracy: there was never a time in human history with more voters called to the polls. However, declining trends in voter turnout globally over the past decade do not bode well: with elections being regularly disputed, people also look for other ways to engage with the political system beyond the ballot box. The incidence of protests globally has increased in 2024. People want to have a say in what the government does. Yet globally, 7 in 10 people perceive that they have little influence over the decisions of their government.
As governments worldwide confront these challenges, we encourage them to critically assess the quality of the evidence they rely on to address these issues. The reality is that in most countries, official statistics do not measure citizen participation in public life with the same rigor and consistency as they do with GDP or inflation rates. When independent institutions or private firms conduct surveys to gauge voting intentions, they rarely ask about political participation beyond elections. When national electoral bodies publish data on voter turnout, this data seldom reveals whether certain segments of the population vote less than others. And when social media analytics is used to provide insights into political engagement, we overlook the fact that younger people are overrepresented in such data, while older adults, low-income individuals and certain ethnic groups may be underrepresented.
We strongly believe that reliable data is crucial for designing effective policies that encourage broader participation, in elections and beyond. In March 2023, the UN Statistical Commission thought the same when endorsing Governance as a new domain in the international statistical nomenclature. This means that governance statistics are now regarded as equally essential for policymaking as unemployment or trade statistics. Countries now need readily available methodologies, and UNDP’s Global Policy Centre for Governance is working closely with statistics offices to fill this gap in the area of political participation. For more than a decade, the Centre has been leading UN efforts to advance standards for the production of governance statistics including the governance statistics needed for reporting on Sustainable Development Goal 16.
"Governance statistics are now regarded as equally essential for policymaking as unemployment or trade statistics."
Statistics Norway, with support from UNDP and UN Women, leads a Task Team of national statisticians and data experts established by the Praia City Group on Governance Statistics to develop internationally relevant and robust methodologies to measure political participation. Since 2022, sixteen statistical offices from countries as diverse as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Slovak Republic, Mexico and Tunisia have been working together to design and test an international survey module that aims to provide a precise picture of how people are – or not – engaging with their political system. We are not starting from scratch. Statistics Norway, for instance, has more than fifty years of experience carrying out biannual election surveys covering both national and local elections.
We believe this is important work for several reasons. First, engaging national statistical offices in this area will help ensure that data on political participation is accurate and trustworthy. Official statistics are gathered using standardized and rigorous methodologies, which is not always the case with other types of unofficial sources of data. In an era where disinformation is turbo-charging political polarization, official statistics are needed more than ever before to help provide verifiable, authoritative data. Moreover, in contexts where doubts about electoral integrity may arise, trusted official statistics can serve as a key countermeasure to maintain the credibility of the electoral process. This was a key topic for discussion at a special side event of the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on Sustainable Development Goals Indicators, which convened in Oslo from 21-23 October, co-hosted by the UNDP Global Policy Centre for Governance and Statistics Norway.
In an era of disinformation and political polarization, verifiable, authoritative data can help to strengthen public trust.
Second, official statistics are inclusive of all segments of society. They can tell us with a high level of precision how participation varies across age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and geography. For example, if official statistics show that young people or certain minority groups faced certain problems on voting day, this can lead to targeted measures to address these disparities. This is a particularly powerful feature of official statistics, which AI models feeding on biased or incomplete datasets fail to live up to.
Thirdly, official statistics offer the only sustainable option to support evidence-based policymaking in this area over the longer term. Since official statistics are collected regularly, they can enable the tracking of political participation trends over time, and across regions, cities or countries. This longitudinal data is essential for countries to have the means to promptly identify and respond to shifts in political engagement, especially when it comes to capturing new forms of civic engagement beyond voting that citizens find effective, and that governments may wish to further invest in.
Even if we live in an age where numbers rain down on us on a daily basis – from Big Data to AI-generated statistics – we believe that more official statistics are needed – not less. Especially on a topic like citizen participation which is so central to a country’s social and political development. Because official statistics are based on the lived experiences of ‘real people’ and this helps to enhance the quality of this data, and its trustworthiness. Action by policymakers is much more likely then.
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