10.4: Comparative Case Study - Barometers Around the World

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define barometer as used in comparative politics.
• Identify, and evaluate the similarities and differences between, eight barometers around the world.

Introduction

As discussed throughout this chapter, comparative political opinion is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more states. Rather than a traditional single case study or a comparative analysis of two states, this final section will introduce and compare global and regional public opinion surveys called "barometers." A barometer in comparative politics refers to a survey that measures public opinion with a regional or global focus, encompassing multiple states.

Barometers Around the World

The chart below lists eight well-known barometers. In what follows, we will briefly introduce each barometer.

Table of Barometers Around the World

Name	Year Established	Geographic Coverage	Website
Afrobarometer	1999	African continent	Afrobarometer
Arab Barometer	2006	Middle East and North Africa	Arab Barometer
Asian Barometer	2001	(mostly) Asian continent	Asian Barometer
Eurasia Barometer	1989	Eastern Europe	Eurasia Barometer
Latino Barometer	1995	Latin America	Latinobarometro
Comparative National Elections Project	1990	states vary	Comparative National Elections Project
AmericasBarometers	2005	Central, North, and South America	LAPOP
World Values Survey	1981	states vary	WVS

Afrobarometer

According to its website, Afrobarometer "is a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that has been conducting public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy, and society since 1999. On a two- to three-year cycle, our national partners in about 35 African countries carry out face-to-face interviews with nationally representative samples, then analy[z]e the data and disseminate the findings."

Afrobarometer conducts rounds of questionnaires, and since 1999, it has completed nine survey rounds in up to 42 countries across all regions of Africa. Round 10 surveys were launched in January 2024 and, as reported on its website, its findings "represent the views and experiences of more than three-quarters of all Africans." The website includes freely-available data on all included states. 

One example from Round 8 is the questionnaire for the country of Botswana, located in the southern part of the African continent. The survey was conducted in 2019, written in English, and included over 100 questions ranging from personal demographics, views of the economy, politics and recent elections, the media, taxes, corruption, and how the government was handling different matters. To explore the results of the survey in Botswana, please visit the summary of results.

Arab Barometer

Arab Barometer, according to its website, "is a nonpartisan research network that provides insight into the social, political, and economic attitudes and values of ordinary citizens across the Arab world. [It has] been conducting high quality and reliable public opinion surveys in the Middle East and North Africa [MENA] since 2006. [It is] the longest-standing and the largest repository of publicly available data on the views of men and women in the MENA region. [Its] findings give a voice to the needs and concerns of Arab publics.” As of June 2025, it has completed eight waves of surveys. 

As one example, from July 2020 to April 2021, the Arab Barometer conducted its sixth wave of surveying across the MENA region, and specifically the countries of Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Iraq. This wave consisted of three parts from July-October 2020, October 2020, and March-April 2021. For an overview of the results for Lebanon from part one, read the Lebanon Country Report.

Asian Barometer

The Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) describes itself as "an applied research program that aims to gauge public opinion across Asia on issues such as political values, democracy, and governance. The ABS covers virtually all major political systems in the region, including regimes that have followed different trajectories and are at different stages of political transition, offering valuable comparative data for researchers and practitioners."

There have been six completed waves of the core questionnaire of the ABS, with the fifth wave including 14 states: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mainland China, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. The survey results do not appear to be readily available for public consumption online.

Eurasia Barometer

Eurasia Barometer writes that it is a "non-commercial, non-governmental international social survey organization headquartered at the Institute for Comparative Survey Research 'Eurasia Barometer' in Vienna, Austria. Its main aim is to monitor political, social, and economic transformations in the countries of post-communist Europe and post-Soviet Eurasia in the opinion of their populations. The target geographical coverage of Eurasia Barometer includes countries of Eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria), the Balkans, Russian Federation, Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan). Eurasia Barometer is a network of research organizations and individual researchers operating in more than 25 countries and including over 50 social and political scientists and social survey researchers.”

While it appears that the Eurasia Barometer has been inactive since 2018, this barometer included at least six different projects: New Democracies Barometer; Social and Political Trends in the CISl Interplay of European, National, and Regional Identities; Living Conditions, Lifestyles, and Health; Models of Migration in New European Border Regions; and Health in Times of Transition. No survey results or summaries appear to be readily available online.

Latino Barometer

Latinobarómetro, according to its webpage, is a "public opinion study that annually applies around 20,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countries representing more than 600 million inhabitants. Corporación Latinobarómetro is a non-profit NGO based in Santiago de Chile, solely responsible for the production and publication of the data. Corporación Latinobarómetro investigates the development of democracy, the economy and society as a whole, using public opinion indicators that measure attitudes, values and behaviors. The results are used by the region's socio-political actors, international, governmental and media actors."

Since 1995, this barometer has conducted 25 waves of surveys, available in both Spanish and English. Questions range from views on the government's role in society to integration across Latin American countries to views on immigration to who has the most power in a country. To see aggregate responses to specific questions for specific states in the region, visit Latinobarometro.

Comparative National Elections Project

The Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP), hosted by The Ohio State University, describes itself as "a partnership among scholars who have conducted election surveys on five continents. Founded in the late 1980s, it now includes over 50 surveys from 1990 to 2021 in 30 different countries, with multiple election surveys in 16 countries. The geographical scope and theoretical concerns of the CNEP have substantially evolved over the past three decades, with essential items from earlier research foci retained in the common core questionnaire and merged dataset, creating time-series that for some countries stretch back over more than three decades."

The CNEP has developed, and maintained, a common core of questionnaire items that are asked in its state-specific surveys. Some of the themes include short-term campaign issues, communication channels in which individuals receive election information, socio-political values, and sub-national political identities and preferences for state structure.

The CNEP's website has publicly available survey results in the aggregate (all surveys merged together) and for specific states. For example, on the latter, one of its first reports is from the 1990 German elections and one of its more recent reports is from the 2024 Mexican elections (note that the data is not formatted for public consumption, but rather for analysis).

AmericasBarometer

The AmericasBarometer considers itself "the premier academic institution carrying out surveys of public opinion in the Americas, with over [30] years of experience. As a center for excellence in survey research, AmericasBarometer uses 'gold standard' approaches and innovative methods to carry out targeted national surveys; conduct impact evaluation studies; and produce reports on individual attitudes, evaluations, and experiences. The AmericasBarometer survey is the only scientifically rigorous comparative survey that covers 34 nations including all of North, Central, and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean. Each year it publishes dozens of high quality academic studies and policy-relevant papers."

The AmericasBarometer maintains a repository of questionnaires and sample designs. Like other barometers, it has a core questionnaire that has been administered 10 times since 2004, but recent surveys include two unique elements: (1) a "split-sample design," in which one-half of respondents received a certain subset of questions and one-half of respondents received a different subset of questions, and (2) experimental modules within the survey, in which questions were randomly assigned to survey respondents. 

World Values Survey

The World Values Survey (WVS) writes that it is "an international research program devoted to the scientific and academic study of social, political, economic, religious and cultural values of people in the world. The project's goal is to assess which impact values stability or change over time has on the social, political and economic development of countries and societies."

The WVS is global in nature, transcending regions and continents, and it has conducted eight waves of surveys since 1981. It has a master survey questionnaire that consists of a core questionnaire, observations by the interviewer, and regional and thematic modules. Within the core questionnaire, there are hundreds of questions asked across a wide range of topics, including happiness and well-being, science and technology, and ethical values and norms.