Von Daten zu Politik? Ein Dialog zu Meinungsforschung und Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik (DataPact)

Whether it's the climate crisis, migration, or the war in Ukraine - when it comes to key issues of social upheaval, leading politicians are increasingly referring to popular opinion. In the summer of 2023, for example, Chancellor Scholz stated that “every single legal regulation” in climate policy would have to find a majority in an imaginary referendum. Leading politicians also regularly refer to survey results in the debates on arms deliveries to Ukraine. However, while opinion polls are becoming increasingly important on the one hand, there is a lack of understanding in politics and the media of the differences in the quality and methodology of polls and their limitations on the other. DataPact would like to address this gap. It assumes that an exchange is necessary between those who conduct scientific research on public opinion and those who consume surveys in practice. To narrow down this exchange thematically, the project focuses on foreign and security policy: on the one hand, this is where the expertise of the applicant institutes can have a particular impact. On the other hand, in times of globalization, foreign and security policy are highly relevant for almost all questions of social transformation and for the crisis resilience of our democracy.