MR's Worldwide Influence on Democracy and Society

Speakers from ACNielsen and the Asia Foundation told today's session at the ESOMAR Congress about the far-reaching implications of research to help voter education in Afghanistan. Other papers looked at MR's role in rebuilding democracy in the UK, and regenerating a South African township.

Barbara Smith from the Asia Foundation explained how her organisation had commissioned the Afghan research in advance of last year's presidential elections. The aim was to understand - for the first time - the mood of the country's electorate and their knowledge of the democratic process in general, and the forthcoming elections in particular.

The research took the form of 32 in-depth interviews with citizens across 8 provinces, followed by a quantitative element involving 800 face-to-face interviews across 29 provinces. In many ways, this was a research project with the usual concerns - sampling, methods, budgets, etc - but it was also one with several unique complications, taking place in a country where only a third of the population is literate, half live below the poverty line, and little is known about the demographics of the citizens.

Kaushik Mukherjee from ACNielsen ORG-MARG in India, explained that it was essential to recruit local interviewers of the same gender and background as interviewees, and to provide them with extensive training. However, the training process was time-consuming, and there were often problems finding enough women interviewers. There were also concerns about security, and all interviewers were given formal letters of introduction to show to village headmen, with the intention of building trust and ensuring security. Some areas, though - due to the presence of the Taliban or warlords - were simply not safe places to conduct research. This, coupled with the lack of secondary demographic data, made drawing up samples more difficult than usual.

Together with the local Afghan Media Resource Centre, which helped to organise fieldwork, the organisations met these challenges, demonstrating - as Mukherjee puts it - 'how the market research industry can stretch itself and adapt techniques when working in adverse, unusual or uncharted conditions'. They went on to uncover the fact that 88% of men and 74% of women intended to vote in the forthcoming elections. However, only 24% knew that the ballot would be secret. Such findings were vital in devising a successful education program: beforehand, just 37% felt the elections would be free and fair, but this rose to 69% after the program was implemented.

Among those planning not to vote, 23% of women said they would not have permission to do so. This was another issue that had to be tackled by the education policy - and the research uncovered the most successful ways to do so. Rather than attempting to educate them about equality, the research found that the most winning arguments focused on the fact that, if women did not vote, the community and the favoured candidate would lose half their potential votes. The research and ensuing education program proved to be a success: 80% of those registered to vote did so, and more than 40% of those who voted were women.

Given the hurdles to be overcome, an 80% turnout seems overwhelming - especially when compared with the poor 61% turnout at the last UK general election. In the same conference session, Deborah Mattinson from Opinion Leader Research discussed this problem of the UK public's apathy or lack of involvement - termed the 'democratic deficit'. Mattinson explained her company's use of 'deliberative techniques' to involve the public in policy-making and restore trust in government. Examples ranged from representative 12-person citizens' juries used to inform a local authority's transport policy to the full-blown 'Deliberation Day' planned for a Department of Health project, which will involve 1,000 people in 100 facilitated groups. Mattinson believes such techniques can 'rebuild the trust between citizen and government and, in doing so, can rebuild democracy'.

Wrapping up the session was Sheny Medani from Market Decisions in South Africa, who discussed the impact of her company's research into the needs of the predominantly black population of Soweto. The research, commissioned by the South African government ten years after the country's transition to democracy, was designed to discover the best ways to regnerate Soweto. Following the research and recommendations, Medani says property prices and sense of pride in the area rose, as developers moved in to improve shopping, cultural and transport facilities.

Other reports from Tessa Russell at ESOMAR Congress 2005 are at www.mrweb.com/drno/news4576.htm and www.mrweb.com/drno/news4577.htm.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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