REP Project

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Findings and Data

Thanks to the extraordinary cooperation of the members of the Bernese and Geneva Grand Councils, as well as the members of the National Council and the Council of States, we were able to gather an enormous amount of information between August and December 2018. No fewer than 368 active parliamentarians took part in the REP study.

Report for the participating politicians sent out in 2022

We informed the politicians who participated in REP about first results in autumn 2023. The reports for the federal parliament can be downloaded here in their original language.

Report for the participating politicians sent out in 2019

We informed the politicians who participated in REP about first results before summer 2019. The reports for each parliament can be downloaded here in their original language.

Report for members of the national parliaments:

Report for members of the Grand Council in Berne:

Report for members of the Grand Council in Geneva:

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Report for the participants of the citizen survey sent out in 2019

Many of the 4,677 participants in the population survey had asked us to inform them about the results of the study. We have therefore produced a separate report. This contains, among other things, information on how well politicians can assess the opinion of the party's electorate. The evaluations show that in most cases they are very close.

You can download the entire report as a PDF in the original languages below:

To read the documents you need to install the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

 

 

Scientific publications

The data collected by REP provide interesting and relevant scientific findings. In order to share them as widely as possible, they are often written in English. Here, you will find a list of presentations by members of REP Switzerland with these data.

Publications

  • Eichenberger, Steven, Frédéric Varone and Luzia Helfer (2021). 'Do interest groups bias MPs’ perceptions of party voters’ preferences?' Party Politics --  LINK (free access).
  • Varone, Frédéric and Luzia Helfer (2021). 'Understanding MPs' perceptions of party voter preferences in Western democracies', West European Politics -- LINK (free access).
  • Helfer, Luzia, Flurina Wäspi and Frédéric Varone. 'Does direct democracy enhance politicians' perceptions of constituency opinion? Evidence from Switzerland', Swiss Political Science Review.-- LINK (free access).
  • Walgrave, Stefaan et al. (2022). 'Inaccurate Politicians. Elected Representatives' Estimations of Public Opinion in Four Countries' Journal of Politics.-- LINK (free access)
  • Sheffer, Lior et al. (2023). 'How Do Politicians Bargain? Evidence from Ultimatum Games with Legislators in Five Countries' American Political Science Review --LINK (free access)
  • Helfer, Luzia, Nathalie Giger and Christian Breunig (2023). 'Fairness of inequality and support for redistribution: directly comparing citizens and legislators' West European Politics -- LINK (free access)
  • Pilet, Jean-Benoît, and Luzia Helfer, Lior Sheffer, Frédéric Varone, Rens Vliegenthart, Stefaan Walgrave (2023). Do Politicians Outside the United States Also Think Voters are More Conservative than they Really Are? A Comparative Study of the Conservative Bias in Elites’ Perception of Public Opinion. American Political Science Review --LINK (free access)
  • Helfer, Luzia and Nathalie Giger, Christian Breunig (2023) 'Fairness of inequality and support for redistribution: directly comparing citizens and legislators'. West European Politics --LINK (free access)
  • Sevenans, Julie et al. (2023) Projection in Politicians" Perceptions of Public Opinion. Political psychology (doi: 10.1111/pops.12900)
  • Bundi, Pirmin et al. (2023) Conscientiousness of representatives and agreement with their party positions. Journal of legislative studies (doi: 10.1080/13572334.2023.2233207)
  • Lucas, Jack et al. (2024). Politicians’ Theories of Voting Behavior. The American political science review (doi: 10.1017/S0003055424001060)
  • Wüest, Reto, Helfer, Luzia, Varon, Frédéric. (2024) Shared Class, Shared Opinion? Policy Preference Congruence Between Citizens and Legislators. Swiss Political Science Review (doi: 10.1111/spsr.12637)
  • Hug, Simon et al. (2024) The role of politicians" perceptual accuracy of voter opinions in their reelection. Legislative studies quarterly (doi: 10.1111/lsq.12471)
  • Bundi, Pirmin et al. (2024) The future might be female: how does the public perceive experts? Journal of European public policy (doi: 10.1080/13501763.2024.2324014)
  • Walgrave, Stefaan et al. (2025). Do Political Leaders Understand Public Opinion Better than Backbenchers? British Journal of Political Science (doi:10.1017/S0007123424000929)

Last updated February 2025

 

Accessibility of research materials and data

Survey with two different kinds of respondents were held in the framework of the project: one with members of parliament and one with citizens.

These efforts are extensively documented:

Please note that we cannot publicly share the raw data of this project here or on the repository at this point due to privacy concerns of our respondents.

If you are interested in the research data, please contact the PI Prof. Frédéric Varone with information on how you plan to use the data. Generally, we are happy to share the data for research, teaching or other non-commercial use. You may have to sign a confidentiality agreement.