Malmö Stad: Data Driven Democracy

Impact Highlights

• 73% of those exposed to the communication efforts said it sparked their interest in voting in the EU election

• 88% gave positive feedback on the communication efforts

Background

In 2024, the City of Malmö carried out a targeted initiative to strengthen local democracy in the long term. A key objective was to increase voter turnout and create better conditions for more Malmö residents to participate in and contribute to the democratic dialogue. To design effective and targeted initiatives, a deeper understanding of residents’ perspectives, motivations, and barriers to civic engagement was required. For this reason, a collaboration with Perspetivo was initiated.

A quantitative study was conducted among Malmö residents aged 18 and over, both before and after the 2024 European Parliament election. The data collection was designed to be representative of the City of Malmö and included a particular focus on areas with historically low voter turnout. The aim was to better understand levels of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to voting and democratic participation, as well as to identify differences and similarities across geographical and demographic groups. The results formed the basis for targeted communication initiatives, which were subsequently followed up through an impact evaluation.

Result

The City of Malmö gained concrete, data-driven insights into how different groups within the city perceive and engage with democracy. These insights enabled the design of targeted initiatives to engage more Malmö residents in the democratic dialogue. The follow-up study also made it possible to measure the impact of the initiatives and provided a clearer picture of how the efforts contributed to creating a more inclusive democratic system for the City of Malmö.