Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Remember the definition of a barometer
- Analyze at least two different barometers
- Evaluate the similarities and differences between two or more barometers
Introduction
Recall from the beginning of the chapter that comparative public opinion is the research and analysis of public opinion across two or more countries.The case study for this chapter is a comparison of global or regional public opinion surveys, also called barometers. Also remember from Chapter Two, that cases in comparative politics are mostly countries. Here is a comparative case study where the cases are not countries, but instead barometers.
What is a barometer?
A barometer is typically defined as “an instrument for determining the pressure of the atmosphere and hence for assisting in forecasting weather and for determining altitude.” However, when political scientists use the term barometer, we are referring to a survey of questions that are asked of individuals in a particular country or region of the world, to gauge their opinions on political ideas, institutions, and actors.
Barometers Around the World
Eight well known barometers include: Afrobarometer, Arab Barometer, Asian Barometer, Eurasia Barometer, Latino Barometer, Comparative National Elections Project, AmericasBarometer, and World Values Survey. Below is a table that summarizes the year, geographic coverage, and website for each of these barometers.
Table of Barometers Around the World
| Name |
Year Established |
Geographic Coverage |
Website |
| Afrobarometer |
1999 |
African continent, 30 countries |
Afrobarometer |
| Arab Barometer |
2006 |
15 countries in Middle East and North Africa |
Arab Barometer |
| Asian Barometer |
2001 |
Asian continent |
Asian Barometer |
| Eurasia Barometer |
1989 |
25 countries in Eastern Europe |
Eurasia Barometer |
| Latino Barometer |
1995 |
18 countries |
Latinobarometro |
| Comparative National Elections Project |
Late 1980s |
5 continents, countries vary |
Comparative National Elections Project |
| AmericasBarometers |
2005 |
34 countries |
LAPOP |
| World Values Survey |
1981 |
Countries vary |
WVS |
According to its website, the Afrobarometer “is a non-partisan, pan-African research institution conducting public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy and society in 30+ countries repeated on a regular cycle. They are the world’s leading source of high-quality data on what Africans are thinking. Additionally, they are the world’s leading research project on issues that affect ordinary African men and women. Afrobarometer collects and publishes high-quality, reliable statistical data on Africa which is freely available to the public.”
The Afrobarometer conducts rounds of questionnaires in specific countries across the African continent. Since 2000, there have been 8 rounds with a total of 171 questionnaires. In the latest round, 34 surveys were asked in 34 different countries. Each country’s question was in one of four languages: Arabic, English, French, or Portuguese.
One example was 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, please visit Summary of results: Afrobarometer Round 8 survey in Botswana in 2019.
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. They have been conducting high quality and reliable public opinion surveys in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2006. Arab Barometer is the longest-standing and the largest repository of publicly available data on the views of men and women in the MENA region. Their findings give a voice to the needs and concerns of Arab publics.”
From July 2020 to April 2021, the Arab Barometer conducted its sixth wave of surveying across the Middle East North African region, and specifically the countries of Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Iraq. This wave consisted of 3 parts from July-October 2020, October 2020, and March-April 2021. The Part 1 questionnaire featured 8 sections of questions: Core Demographics; Lebanon: Beirut Port Explosion; COVID-19; State of the Economy; Trust and Government Performance; Media, Religion, and Culture; International Relations; and Demographics. There are approximately 58 questions across these 8 sections. To explore the results of this wave for the country of Lebanon, read the Lebanon Country Report.
Asian Barometer
The Asian Barometer 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 four completed waves of the core questionnaire of the Asian Barometer, with a fifth wave underway from 2018 to 2021. The fourth wave occurred from 2014 to 2016 and was in 14 countries: Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Mongolia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. The core questionnaire consisted of over 170 questions across 24 sections. Some of these sections range from Economic Evaluations, Trust in Institutions, and Social Capital to Citizenship, International Relations, and Socio-economic Background.
Unlike the prior barometers described, the survey results do not appear to be readily available for public consumption.
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.
For example, the New Democracies Barometer is described as “The cross-national and longitudinal survey "New Democracies Barometer (NDB)" has been conducted in 1991 (NDB I), 1992 (NDB II), 1994 (NDB III), 1996 (NDB IV) and 1998 (NDB V) by the Austrian Paul Lazarsfeld Society for Social Research and is covering the following 11 countries: Belarus, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.”
The survey instrument appears to have consisted of 43 questions on topics ranging from employment status, how their system of government works, and views of the European Union. No survey results or summaries appear to be readily available.
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 22 surveys. The surveys, also called questionnaires, are available in both Spanish and English. The English version of the questionnaire consists of over 100 questions. For example, the first question of the 2020 survey asked “Generally speaking, would you say you are satisfied with your life?” Additionally, questions range from views on the government's role in society, integration across Latin American countries, views on immigration, and who has more power in a country.
The survey results are organized by country. For example, the 2020 questionnaire was fielded in 18 countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
For example, the 2020 survey conducted in the country of Ecuador had a total of 1,200 respondents, 587 who identified as a man and 613 who identified as a woman. 283 were individuals aged 15-25, 415 respondents were aged 26-40, 350 individuals were aged 41-60, and 155 respondents were aged 61 or more. To see aggregate responses to specific questions for specific countries 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.”
CNEP has over 50 publicly available surveys from countries around the world. For example, one of its first reports is from the 1990 German elections and one of its more recent reports is from the 2016 Taiwanese elections.
The CNEP has developed, and maintained, a common core of questionnaire items that are asked in country-specific surveys. The most recent common core includes what appears to be over 100 questions across 14 themes. Some of these 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.
One interesting aspect of CNEP’s publicly available surveys is that they are available by country and in the aggregate. The aggregate version includes all 53 available surveys’ common core items merged together in a single file that can be used by survey researchers and data analysts. The technical report of this merged dataset describes the county and year, timing of interviews, the survey organization who conducted the poll, the sponsor of the survey, sampling method, mode of survey (face-to-face, online, telephone, etc.), and population covered.
Unlike other surveys, such as the Afrobarometer and Latino Barometer, it does not appear that the survey results are prepared for general public consumption in the form of public-facing reports. Instead, the data is available in a specialized file format that requires knowledge and ability in using specialized data analysis software.
AmericasBarometer
The AmericasBarometer considers itself “the premier academic institution carrying out surveys of public opinion in the Americas, with over thirty 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 country questionnaires and sample designs. Like other barometers, it has a core questionnaire that has been administered 9 times since 2004. The questionnaire is available in both Spanish and English. The most current survey, from 2021, includes two unique elements.
The first unique aspect of the AmericasBarometer is that it used a split-sample design. This means that half (50%) of respondents received a Core A set of questions, while the other half of respondents received a Core B set of questions. Additionally, there is a set of questions that all survey respondents were asked.
For example, a question that was asked of all respondents was “In your opinion, what is the most serious problem faced by the country?”. On the other hand, only individuals in the Core A split-sample were asked “To what extent do you respect the political institutions of [your country]?”. While individuals in Core B split-sample were only asked “Water is a limited, expensive to provide, and necessary resource. Which one of the following statements do you most agree with?”
Second, there are experimental modules within the survey. An experimental module means that the questions within this module are randomly assigned to survey respondents. For example, in the 2021 survey, there is an experimental module that includes 4 different treatments, or sets of questions. Each time the survey is administered, the person being interviewed has a 1 in 4 (25%) chance of being assigned a particular treatment. Experimental modules are increasingly common in surveys, as it allows the survey researcher to see how individuals respond to different “treatments” of questions.
Below is a visualization of split-sample design with common questions across 4 treatments. Split-sample design consists of two core sets of questions, labeled A and B. Given that respondents in sample A or B could be randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental modules, the circle of each sample is divided into four equal parts. Additionally, the inner green circle represents the common core questions that were asked regardless of split.
World Values Survey
Finally, the World Values Survey (WVS) writes that its “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.”
Unlike the prior barometers, the WVS is global in nature since it transcends regions and continents. The WVS has conducted seven waves of surveys since 1981. The latest, 7th wave, was conducted from 2017 to 2020 across 51 countries and territories. For this, and prior waves, there is 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 290 questions asked across a wide range of topics, including happiness and well-being, science and technology, and ethical values and norms. For example, question #49 asks “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?” While question #158 asks a respondent to answer on a 10-point scale from completely disagree to completely agree with the following statement: “Science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable.” And finally, question #195 asks whether the death penalty is never justifiable (point scale 1) to always justifiable (point scale 10).
In addition to these waves, the WVS has developed the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map. According to their website: “The map presents empirical evidence of massive cultural change and the persistence of distinctive cultural traditions. Main thesis holds that socioeconomic development is linked with a broad syndrome of distinctive value orientations. Analysis of WVS data made by political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel asserts that there are two major dimensions of cross-cultural variation in the world.”
The following is drawn from the WVS Database Findings and Insights page:
- Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority and traditional family values. People who embrace these values also reject divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide. These societies have high levels of national pride and a nationalistic outlook.
- Secular-rational values have the opposite preferences to the traditional values. These societies place less emphasis on religion, traditional family values and authority. Divorce, abortion, euthanasia and suicide are seen as relatively acceptable. (Suicide is not necessarily more common.)
- Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security. It is linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook and low levels of trust and tolerance.
- Self-expression values give high priority to environmental protection, growing tolerance of foreigners, gays and lesbians and gender equality, and rising demands for participation in decision-making in economic and political life.
This cultural map brings together many different, and sometimes complementary, and other times competing, ideas and values onto a two-dimension scale. For a thorough introduction to this cultural map, please visit the Findings and Insights page of the WVS Database.
Contributor(s)
2022 version: Byran Martin, Ph.D. and Josh Franco, Ph.D.
