Norris – APSA-CP 5/24/2004 6:29 PM

From the Civic Culture to the Afro-Barometer: The expansion in cross-national public
opinion surveys

Pippa Norris

Harvard University

To <[email protected]> For APSA-CP 3738 words.

Survey resources for the systematic cross-national comparison of public opinion have expanded
dramatically during recent decades. Many political and intellectual factors have probably
contributed towards this development. As the world has become more interconnected through
globalization, so the social sciences have been tugged bobbing in its wake. Regional and
international associations of political scientists have strengthened professional networks and
institutional linkages, notably the ECPR and IPSA. The expansion of the European Union played
a direct role, as the Commission monitored public opinion since the early 1970s through the
Eurobarometer and related surveys. The growth of electoral democracies has facilitated the study
of public opinion and also the demand for commercial market research companies and non-profit
social science institutes, free from political interference and overt state censorship. International
development agencies, such as the UNDP, the World Bank, and Transparency international,
have increasingly recognized that programs seeking to expand democracy and good governance
need to monitor public opinion, as well as the standard ‘objective’ developmental indicators.

Particular leaders in the field have had a decisive and enduring impact. Many colleagues
have contributed to this process, and it is invidious to single out a few, but both Ronald Inglehart
and Roger Jowell have played seminal roles, through generously initiating, managing, and
sustaining major cross-national surveys which have had multiplier effects through funding public
opinion institutes and training the next generation of field-work staff and survey analysts. Modern
international communications, notably the ease of communicating among colleagues and
distributing electronic datasets online through the standard archives and dedicated websites,
have greatly facilitated awareness and use of these resources. Whether leading or following,
intellectual fashions have also contributed towards this process, notably eroding interest in the
more old-fashioned historical-institutional tradition of area studies within specific countries, and
the demand among the younger generation of researchers in Asia, Latin America and Eastern
Europe for more systematic cross-national comparison of political culture and behavior,
conducted within varying institutional contexts.

Perhaps the most recent spur has been the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, renewing
American curiosity about public opinion in the rest of the world, particularly areas such as the
Middle East where cross-national survey research has been non-existent or scarce. These
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developments have gradually transformed the geographic scope of coverage, with an exponential
surge in the available survey resources occurring during the last decade, allowing comparativists
to move ‘from nations to categories’, one of the key but elusive goals of the sub-discipline.
Nevertheless the substantial advances in collaborative data collection have, somewhat curiously,
moved ahead of the profession’s exploitation of these resources.

To summarize the state of the sub-field, we can first compare basic information about the
available cross-national survey series and then briefly summarize the bottom line of using each of
them.

Comparing the available cross-national surveys

The series of cross-national public opinion surveys are included in this comparison if they meet
four criteria, namely

• Sample: surveys are designed to monitor public opinion among a representative

sample of the adult population in each country, excluding surveys of elites such
as TI’s Corruption Perception Index1, or the CIVED civic education study among
students2;

• Coverage: surveys cover a substantial number of countries, ranging from 8

nations in the Asian barometer to almost 80 in the World Values Survey;

• Subject: the core questionnaire or battery of items focus on measuring political

and social attitudes, values, and behavior, rather than other topics such as
population or health surveys; and,

• Time-series: they constitute a recognizable series conducted over successive

waves, rather than a single snap-shot survey.

Eight survey series were identified on this basis, with their basic features listed in Table 1.

1. Eurobarometer

The Euro-barometers are the longest and perhaps one of the best-known series, constituting
public opinion surveys conducted on behalf of the European Commission at least twice a year
(spring and autumn) in all member states of the European Union since the early seventies. The
geographic coverage has expanded with EU membership, now covering all 25 member states,
monitoring social and political attitudes in the European publics. The Eurobarometer program was
later enlarged by small scale Flash Eurobarometer and a Central and Eastern Eurobarometer;
later replaced by the Candidate Countries Eurobarometer.

The standard items in the Eurobarometer were integrated into the Mannheim Eurobarometer
Trend File 1970-1999 and ZUMA also maintain the online Main Trends Documentation 1970-
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2002. The data received from the principal investigator are checked, corrected, and formatted to
archival standards since the beginning by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social
Research (ICPSR), recently in cooperation with ZUMA’s Zentralarchiv at Cologne and the
Swedish Social Science Data Service (SSD). ZUMA maintain a codebook and questionnaire
continuity guide, which is an invaluable short-cut since by now there are over sixty surveys
available. Eurobarometer raw data and documentation (questionnaires, codebooks etc.) are
stored at the ICPSR and at the Zentralarchiv and made available for social science research
purposes (i.e. secondary analysis of the raw data) by the Social Science Data Archives. Survey
results are regularly published in official reports by the Eurobarometer unit of the European
Commission.

Bottom line: The Eurobarometer series is familiar to students of the politics of the European
Union, but the full potential of this series is still surprisingly under-utilized outside of this sub-field,
perhaps because of the complexities of handling over sixty large-scale surveys. The best
exemplification of its potential use is the Beliefs in Government book series published in 1995 by
Oxford University Press (time for an updated edition?).

2. The World Values Survey/European Values Survey

Still the grand dame of cross-national surveys, the study is now entering its fifth wave. The World
Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It has carried out
representative national surveys of the basic values and beliefs of publics in almost 80 societies
on all six inhabited continents, containing almost 80 percent of the world's population. It builds on
the European Values Surveys, first carried out in 1981. A second wave of surveys, designed for
global use, was completed in 1990-1991, a third wave was carried out in 1995-1996 and a fourth
wave took place in 1999-2001. This study has given rise to more than 300 publications, in 16
languages.

This project is being carried out by an international network of social scientists, with local funding
for each survey (though in some cases, it has been possible to raise supplementary funds from
outside sources). In exchange for providing the data from interviews with a representative
national sample of at least 1,000 people in their own society, each participating group gets
immediate access to the data from all of the other participating societies. Thus, they are able to
compare the basic values and beliefs of the people of their own society with those of more than
80 other societies. In addition, they are invited to international meetings at which they can
compare findings and interpretations with other members of the WVS network.
The project is guided by a steering committee representing all regions of the world. Coordination
and distribution of data are based at the Institute for Social Research of the University of
Michigan, under the direction of Ronald Inglehart. The dataset is documented at its dedicated
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website and it is available from all the data archives, with the 4th wave released this spring, and
the fifth wave currently in the field.

Bottom line: Still the only cross-national public opinion survey comparing all world regions, with
growing geographic coverage of the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Time-series analysis is
complicated mainly by the fact that country coverage and some items vary across successive
waves, and the 1981-3 first wave focused mainly on affluent nations. Nevertheless the WVS
provides a benchmark for many developing societies, where for many years it was the only widely
available cross-national survey monitoring a wide range of social and political values. The new
Human Values and Beliefs sourcebook (Siglo XXI Editores, 2004) makes the descriptive data
accessible for the electronically challenged. Some of the most recent book publications from this
include Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Worldwide (Inglehart and Norris, 2003)
and Sacred and secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Norris and Inglehart 2004), both with
Cambridge University Press.

3. The International Social Survey Program

The International Social Survey Program (ISSP) is a continuing, annual program of cross-national
collaboration. It brings together pre-existing, social science projects such as the General Social
Survey at NORC and the British Social Attitudes series, and coordinates research goals among
the consortium, thereby adding a cross-national perspective to the individual, national studies.
Since 1983, the ISSP has grown to 38 nations, including many industrial and post-industrial
societies. Each survey covers a representative sample of the national population. The focus is the
inclusion of a thematic annual module with a battery of items carried in existing social national
surveys, with the annual theme covering rotating issues in the social sciences, such as national
identity, the role of government, religion, the environment, work orientations, and gender roles.
Considerable attention is paid towards standardizing the social and demographic background
information in the surveys.

Bottom line: The ISSP has a far more limited geographic range than the WVS, and a narrower
thematic focus than the WVS or the EB, but nevertheless, if the thematic topic fits your research
needs, the survey provides considerable depth on each topic. Illustrative books include Roger
Jowell, Lindsay Brook, and Lizanne Dowds, eds., International Social Attitudes: The 10th BSA
Report. (Dartmouth, 1993).

4. The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems

The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) bring together an international team of
collaborators who have incorporated a special battery of survey questions into the national
election studies, based on a representative sample of the electorate in each country. Data from
each of the separate election studies is coordinated, integrated and cleaned by the Center for
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Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, at the University of Michigan. The dataset is
designed to facilitate the comparison of macro and micro-level electoral data. Module 1 of the
CSES (1996-2001) allows comparison of a representative cross-section of the electorate in 37
legislative and presidential national elections in 32 countries. The geographic coverage is
remarkably diverse, ranging from Belarus and Ukraine to Canada, Australia and Belgium. The
focus on voters’ choices, the cross-national integration, and above all the timing of the data
collection (within a year following each of the elections), provide a unique opportunity to compare
voting behavior in a way that is not possible through other common sources of comparative data
such as the World Values Survey. Fieldwork, data-collection, and integration of the second
module (2001-2005) is in process, with some country datasets already released, and planning for
Module 3 is currently under-way.

Bottom line: The CSES is the best data currently available for cross-national electoral analysis
but analysis is complicated by the diverse range of regions, political systems, and levels of
democracy included in the study. This requires a ‘most different’ comparative strategy, rather than
the familiar regional/area approach. The integration of the data, for example the demographic and
social coding, is also far more complicated than in a single-funded survey such as the
Eurobarometer. The main strength is the capacity for multi-level analysis combining analysis of
political behavior within contrasting institutional contexts.

5. The Globalbarometers

Rather than a single entity, these are actually four separate regional series, loosely coordinated,
and originally inspired by the Eurobarometer model. The New Europe series coordinated by
Richard Rose at Strathclyde University has focused upon monitoring the process of cultural
change in political and economic attitudes following the breakdown of communism. The survey is
conducted every year in selected Central and Eastern Europe and it has resulted in numerous
papers and books published by Professor Rose and his collaborators. Under Marta Lagos (MORI,
Santiago), the Latinobarometer has conducted pioneering work monitoring annual trends in
attitudes towards democracy. The series started with 8 nations in 1995 and subsequently
expanded in 17 countries in the region. Although an invaluable resource, and founded as a non-
profit institution, the electronic data is less easily available for secondary analysis than other
surveys compared here, and as a result it has had less impact on Latin Americanists than might
be expected given the topic and the quality of the data. The Afrobarometer is one of the newer
members of the stable, pioneered by Mike Bratton, Bob Mattes, and E. Gyimah-Boadi who
developed networks of surveyors in many countries which have never had any previous social
scientific surveys of political and social attitudes. The Afrobarometer also serves as a model of
transparency for others in releasing full information about the work in progress, including
questionnaires, publications, funding, and associates, as well as depositing all data through
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archives and its own dedicated website. Lastly the Asian Barometer is the latest to join the
network, sharing similar concerns to monitor public attitudes towards democratization and
economic development, with 8 nations coordinated in the survey by Yun-han Chu in Taiwan.

Bottom line: At last, survey research is covering large parts of the developing world, such as
Africa, which were previously neglected, and thereby building up the infrastructure of experienced
fieldwork teams and survey analysts that will pay dividends in future. The surveys facilitate cross-
national comparisons among a group of collaborators while also retaining regional autonomy to
focus on specific themes of interest to each area. One of the most important remaining
challenges is to make sure that this data is available and utilized by the social science
communities within each region, by equipping the next generation of graduate students with the
necessary intellectual frameworks, skills, and infrastructure to exploit the data. The first book
emerging from the Afrobarometer series is Michael Bratton, Robert Mattes and E. Gyimah-Boadi
Learning about Reform in Africa: Public Opinion, Democracy, and Markets (Cambridge University
Press 2004).

6. The European Social Survey

The European Social Survey (the ESS) is a new, academically-driven social survey designed to
chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs
and behavior patterns of its diverse populations. The survey covers at least 21 nations (in
Western and Central Europe) and it will employ the most rigorous methodologies. The survey
contains a core that will be replicated every two years plus rotating thematic modules, allocated to
teams of scholars on a competitive basis. It is funded via the European Commission's 5th
Framework Programme, with supplementary funds from the European Science Foundation which
also sponsored the development of the study over a number of years. The project is directed by a
Central Coordinating Team led by Roger Jowell at the Centre for Comparative Social Surveys,
City University. The organization of the survey is a model in transparency as well as employing
the highest standards in sampling and fieldwork practices, and carefully standardizing the
collection of social and demographic background data.

Bottom line: In time, this will come to be regarded as the Rolls Royce of cross-national surveys.
The central coordination and funding of the ESS, the care in crafting and testing the
questionnaire, and the development of additional contextual data, provides a model that other
cross-national survey research will seek to emulate (if only they had the resources). A pure
pleasure for any analyst to work with: the series can only become more valuable over time.

7. The Pew Global Attitudes Survey

In response to the aftermath of 9/11, attention in the United States has turned increasingly
towards understanding how the world (particularly the Muslim world) views America. The ‘clash’
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thesis has also spurred greater interest among the international relations community into issues
of global cultural similarity and difference. Andy Kohut at the Pew Center for the People & the
Press responded to this with the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, an annual attempt to monitor
public opinion in many countries, using commercial market research companies. The Pew Global
Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys, originally of more than 38,000
people in 44 countries in 2002, and expanded in 2003 with additional surveys to a total of nearly
75,000 people among the 50 populations surveyed (49 countries plus the Palestinian Authority).
The project encompasses a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their
own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. The
Pew Global Attitudes Project is chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.
The Pew Global Attitudes Project is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, with a supplemental
grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Bottom line: The published reports are available online, attracting considerable media attention
and interest in the State Department and the policy community, but the data is not yet released
for secondary analysis.

8. Gallup International Voice of the People

The last survey under comparison, coordinated by Gallup International, is similar in orientation to
the Pew survey but with a commercial orientation. In 2002 Gallup International conducted a
worldwide survey of 60 nations monitoring attitudes towards issues such as the environment,
terrorism, global issues, governance and democracy. In 2003 this survey was conducted again
covering Western Europe, the USA and Canada but also Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Eastern
Europe, and Latin America. Highlights of the results are published on their website but the
published report (containing detailed cross-tabulations) and the electronic data are available only
for purchase and Gallup International offers the opportunity for clients to add items to the
questionnaire, also at cost. It is also not possible to evaluate the quality of the detailed
methodology, sampling, and field-work practices in countries where surveys are uncommon, such
as in the Middle East and Africa, from the publicly-available information released on Gallup’s
website.

Bottom line: Both Pew and Gallup are breaking new ground by expanding their geographic
coverage in ambitious attempts to monitor public opinion around the world. This is a welcome
addition to the available resources but it remains too early to evaluate the quality of these
surveys, and unfortunately access to the data remains limited.

Conclusions:

Opportunities for cross-national survey research have been transformed out of all recognition
over the last twenty years. The multiplicity of surveys is to be welcomed by facilitating replication
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both across years and among nations. Some of the more commercial initiatives may fail, for
example if America withdraws into itself and turns away from the world again, in its periodic
cyclical fashion. Yet it seems likely that the underlying momentum will continue in subsequent
decades, as younger generations of social scientists trained in survey methods and public opinion
analysis will develop in each region. Obvious questions can be raised about the quality of
sampling and fieldwork in poorer, developing nations which have not built up experienced market
research companies and social science institutes. But the replication allows some cross-checks
to be developed across different surveys. Multiple familiar questions can be raised about the
quality of questionnaire translations and the employment of equivalent standards across different
nations - debates which have been with us ever since The Civic Culture. Yet in counterbalance
there are certain distinct practical advantages associated with conducting surveys in developing
nations, namely much lower refusal and non-response rates (currently approaching record levels
for opinion polls conducted in the US), as well as relatively low budgets. Over time, as greater
experience is gained, and as an institutional survey infrastructure is developed in the social
sciences, these initiatives will mature.

Biographical note: Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard
University. Her latest books are Electoral Engineering (based on the CSES) and Sacred and
Secular (with Ron Inglehart, based on the WVS), both published this year by Cambridge
University Press. She is currently writing Radical Right (based on the ESS and the CSES), also
for CUP. Further details about these projects and the datasets discussed are available at
pippanorris.com.
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Table 1: Key features of the cross-national series of surveys

Series Series Frequency Nations Data Coordinating Online resources Http://

started (latest downloadable Organization
(i) survey) (iii)
(ii)
1 Eurobarometer 1973 Bi-annual 25 Public Antonis PAPACOSTAS Organizing & reports:
archives Directorate General Press & http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/
Comms, European Commission Data and continuity guides from ZUMA,
Cologne Archive:
www.gesis.org/en/data_service/eurobarometer
2 World Values Study-European Values 1981- Approx. 5 79 Public Ronald INGLEHART, Institute of Organizing and data;
Study 1983 years archives Social Research, University of www.worldvaluessurvey.org/
Michigan
3 International Social Survey Program 1985 Annual 38 Public Secretariat: Bjørn Organizing:
(ISSP) archives HENRICHSEN, Norwegian www.issp.org/
Social Science Data Services Data and continuity guide from the ZUMA
(NSD), Bergen Cologne Archive:
www.gesis.org/en/data_service/issp/
4 Comparative Study of Electoral 1996- Module 31 Public Secretariat: David HOWELL, Organizing and data:
Systems (CSES) 2001 every 5 archives ISR, University of Michigan. www.umich.edu/~cses/
years Chair: Ian McAllister, ANU
5 Global-barometers, including: www.globalbarometer.org/
New Europe Barometers 1991 Annual 16 Richard ROSE, CSPP, www.cspp.strath.ac.uk
Strathclyde University
Afrobarometer 1999 Annual 15 Public Michael BRATTON (Michigan www.afrobarometer.org
archives State), Robert MATTES (IDASA,
SA) and Dr E. GYIMAH-BOADI
(CDD Ghana)
Latino-barometer 1995 Annual 17 Tables only Marta LAGOS, MORI, Santiago www.latinobarometro.org
Asian barometer 2001 Annual 8 Yun-han Chu, Taiwan www.eastasiabarometer.org
6 European Social Survey (ESS) 2002 Biennial 21 Public Roger JOWELL, Center for Organizing:
archives Comparative Social Surveys, naticent02.uuhost.uk.uu.net
City University Data from the Norwegian archive:
http://ess.nsd.uib.no.
7 Pew Global Attitudes Survey 2002 Annual 49 Only tables Andrew KOHUT, Director, The people-press.org/pgap/
released Pew Research Center for the
People & the Press
8 Gallup International Voice of the 2002 Annual 60 Only tables Meril JAMES, Secretary General www.voice-of-the-people.net/
People released Gallup International

Notes: (i) In some cases there were often pilot studies and forerunners, such as the European Community Study, but this date is the recognizable start of the
series in its present form. (ii) The number of countries included in each survey often varies by year. (iii) If not deposited in public archives or directly downloadable,
access to some data may be available from the surveys organizers on request, but there might also be charges for access.
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1
Although Transparency International have now launched the TI Global Corruption Barometer among a
representative sample of the public. This is intended to be an annual series monitoring public opinion on
this topic, carried as part of Gallup International’s Voice of the People Survey in 2002 and 2003. See
http://www.transparency.org/surveys/index.html#barometer
2
For more details about the International IEA CIVED (Civic education) survey conducted in 28 nations
see http://iea-dpc.de/Home_e/Studies/CIVED_e/cived_e.html and also http://nces.ed.gov/Surveys/CivEd/