Talk:Opinion polling for the 2019 Danish general election

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Green bloc[edit]

The Alternative have declared that they no longer consider themselves a part of Red Bloc, but form their own "Green Bloc".--Batmacumba (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No response to this?--Batmacumba (talk) 03:49, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Both The Alternative and Hard Line are outside the blocks, since they endorse their own leaders as candidates for the position as prime minister. Philaweb (talk) 12:59, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Government parties reject blue electoral union with Hard Line" "Regeringspartier afviser blåt valgforbund med Stram Kurs". Ritzau (in Danish). Berlingske Tidende. 10 May 2019. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help) Philaweb (talk) 11:30, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Duplication?[edit]

The 'Greens' poll with fieldwork 7 May appears to exactly duplicate the results of the 'Voxmeter' poll with fieldwork 6 May. Is this a remarkable coincidence or are they in fact the same poll? Tammbeck (talk) 12:18, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Left-Right arrangement[edit]

Given that:

Denmark has a clear, two-bloc-system that spans over 95% of the vote,
and that within these blocs, it is fairly easy to tell which party is further left-wing, or right-wing, and which are more centrist,

I conclude that a left-to-right vertical arrangement of the Danish parties would make the table much more legible. Such a rearrangement would definitely go by the Wikipedia rules (as each party article describes that party's position on the axis, with a reference).

Here's an example of what it could look like.

Kahlores (talk) 04:16, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bump for User:Vistor. Kahlores (talk) 22:17, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see two problems: 1) Some of the positions of the parties on a left-right axis are not obvious e.g. The Alternative (both centrist and left wing - depending on the policy area) and the Klaus Riskær party. 2) By arranging on a left-right axis Wikipedia would take a political stand, because some of the parties do not recognise the left-right axis. The Alternative refuses to be part of the bloc system. The Danish People's Party does not look at itself as a right wing party but as centrist. Because of the the number of votes in last election is a more neutral position. --Vistor (talk) 09:39, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The number of votes in last election is the most neutral and logical way of arranging parties in opinion polling tables (aside from it being customary practice in the rest of Wikipedia), as arraging them within the left-right axis in a table where such a positioning is not relevant could imply Wikipedia is taking a political stand, as Vistor points out. I've seen Kahlores making such left-wing arrangements in opinion polling articles for other countries unilaterally, and I don't think this is the most appropiate way of presenting parties in such tables. Impru20^talk 10:21, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It also isn't clear to me that it makes sense to do so in cases where it isn't obvious that pollsters generally follow a left-right order. In the case of Danish pollsters, if parties are placed on such an axis then it is usually just a red/blue separation with the Social Democrats (A) on the left (and not a complete left-right axis), not as you've placed them, and many simply opt for ordering by their overall score, so I'd concur with Impru here in opting just for the previous election order. Mélencron (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback.

To clarify, the left-right axis is an objective assessment of the political supply, and not a subjective one. In a liberal democracy, all parties have an opinion on equal rights, thus ranging them between equalitarian and hierarchical ideologies, with classical liberalism near the center. It can be traced back to almost 400 years, in England, well before France invented the left and right seating (see Old Tories & Whigs, and before that, the English Civil War between Royalists and Parliamentarians).

The DPP's claim that they are centrist, is... typical of right-wing parties: Perussuomalaiset, Front national, UKIP, all claim to be beyond the left-right paradigm, and indeed capture voters from typical left-wing constituencies. There is a simple explanation to that: it is totally possible to combine hierarchy with the masses: this is the case of One-nation conservatism, of religious parties, and of course, nationalist parties, from civic ones to specifically racist ones. 'Populism' (a term imported from American tradition) also ranges in that category, at least in the South.

However, the assessment can be harder for fresh parties, or one-man parties, thus I see Vistor's points about The Alternative and Klaus Riskær Pedersen. The Alternative seems ambiguous at first, but this very good article makes it clear that it is not a unionist left-wing party, but a progressive party favorable to entrepreneurs and the urban left. Likewise KPP's infobox description as "center" and "populist" is contradictory, center being unsourced and probably derived from the subjective definition earlier described. We can safely put KPP near the party which he tried to enter (K).

With 13 columns for parties, plus one for "Others", using letters unknown to the non-Danish, the current table is hard to read. The left-right ordering is meaningful in Danish politics, it is widely used by the media, and it makes the politics of Denmark, and many other countries, much simpler to understand. And, contrary to the decreasing order, it stays almost unchanged over the decades.

Kahlores (talk) 21:49, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The issue here is where do you place parties in the left-right axis. This is not something that is simple or easy to do. In Wikipedia, using the left-wing axis as an actual party representation measure is reduced mostly to election parliament charts and diagrams, where it makes sense to do so. Elsewhere, it's complicated how it can relate to other issues, i.e. opinion polling. Opinion polls typically don't tend to arrange parties in a left-right logic, but rather based on past election results. We could discuss how objective the left-right axis may result as an assessment of the political supply, but we would all agree that past election results are an even more objective assessment. I don't understand how left-to-right politics relate to statistics such as opinion polling, and I fail to grasp how do the whole explanation you just gave on politics and ideologies relate to opinion polling at all. Impru20^talk 22:14, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I support leaving the order as it currently is. Ordering it left-right is not a very simple thing to do, and doesn't have much to do with opinion polling anyway. The current order makes sense and is entirely unbiased. Sorting them by left-right could very well be seen as biased when we put a party to the left that actually considers themselves to be centrist. If we were to change the order I would suggest alphabetical by the party's official letter, but I do think the current order is the best. Kaffe42 (talk) 22:55, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is no known occurrence of a far-left party considering themselves centrist. Problem solved. Kahlores (talk) 01:08, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that the positions of the parties change depending on the policy area. Let me give you anothe example: You have placed The Liberal Alliance between The Social Liberal Party and Venstre, but if the discussion is how to fund the welfare state (a major policy area in Danish politics) the closest allies of The Liberal Alliance would be The New Right and to some extent The Conservatives. The Danish People's Party would agree with the Social Democrats on that agenda, so that would make the left-right scale meaningless. The only neutral way to represent this is the number of votes in the last election. --Vistor (talk) 14:00, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Another problem is the Christian Democrats who are bone-dry on social issues but pretty left-leaning in some other areas. Unless there are RS for a consensus within the Danish parties themselves, I say leave it as it is. Tammbeck (talk) 14:32, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday, User:Impru20 did not understand why I had made such a long explanation on ideologies. This was meant to answer such remarks about right-wing parties "looking left-wing in some areas". There is no such thing. This is just the right-wing, once we've departed from the classic liberal center. Kahlores (talk) 19:38, 31 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]