Other comparative studies

In addition to the comparative worldwide surveys conducted on a regular basis there are some studies which have been carried out in a few selected countries only. Until now the Central Archive (ZA) has collected the following studies:

The European and World Values Surveys

The first European Values Survey was conducted in 1981 by the European Value Systems Study Group. Countries participating in the study were France, Italy, Spain, West Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands and Ireland. The purpose was a cross-national survey of moral, religious, political and social values in western Europe.

The survey was replicated in 14 additional countries between 1981 and 1984, including countries outside Europe such as Argentina and South Korea, referred to as the World Values Survey by R. Inglehart and the World Values Survey Group. The second wave of the World Values Survey was carried out between 1990 and 1993 including 43 nations. The data and codebooks of the World Values Surveys 1981 - 1984 and 1990 - 1993 are available in English in the ZA. The European Values Survey is also included in the data of the 1981 - 1984 study, but only to the extent to which the variables were used also in the World Values Survey. In order to investigate further the dynamics of value changes the European survey was repeated in 1999/2000. The data was processed by Tilburg and ZA and are now available.

For further information see http://www.gesis.org/en/data_service/topics/50-CD-ROM/index.htm, WVS homepage, EVS homepage.

The USIA XX surveys

The USIA XX study is a collection of more than sixty surveys conducted in European countries in the late fifties and early sixties. The title of the surveys is "international relations" and the principal investigator was the USIA (United States Information Agency) in Washington. The surveys focused on topics like security policy, international politics, foreign policy, arms control, evaluation of American and Soviet policy. The data was processed and documented in the ZA with support of the European Science Foundation (ESF). The data and questionnaires (only original questionnaires on paper) are available in English at the ZA. Many of the USIA surveys were made available in 2002 through a cooperation between ZA, Roper Center, Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung and Prof. Dr. Hans Rattinger. A CD-ROM includes data and documentation in the ZA CodebookExplorer.

The Civic Culture Survey

This classic study was carried out by Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba in five nations in 1959/60 and was one of the earliest comparative studies. The study compared political attitudes, political culture, political socialisation of the population and democracy in Great Britain, West Germany, Italy, Mexico and the United States. Data and documentation are available in English at the ZA.

The Four Nation Study

The "Four nation Study" data set contains information about the political attitudes and beliefs of citizens in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The four surveys were conducted in the spring of 1985 by polling organisations operating in the four countries. Data and Documentation is available in English at the ZA.

 The Political Action Survey

The Political Action Study consists of three parts. The first original study was carried out in eight nations between 1973 and 1976: Great Britain, West Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, the United States, Italy, Switzerland and Finland. Questions were asked about the extent and form of political participation, political orientation, post materialism, social and political attitudes and life satisfaction. The respondents from West Germany, the Netherlands and the United States were re-interviewed between 1979 and 1981. In addition, a new representative sample of the population in these three countries was drawn and interviewed between 1979 and 1981 as well. The contents of the studies carried out between 1979 and 1981 focused on the structure and determinants of political participation and political ideology. The data and documentation are available in English at the ZA.

European Social Survey

The European Social Survey (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 behaviour patterns of its diverse populations. The survey will cover at least 19 nations and will employ the most rigorous methodologies. 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.

For further information see ESS homepage. 

The International Social Justice Project

The International Social Justice Project is an international collaborative research project which has explored popular beliefs and attitudes on social, economic and political justice through two large-scale opinion surveys fielded in thirteen countries in 1991 and six countries in 1996. The 1991 survey was fielded in Russia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Germany (eastern and western), the United States, England, Holland, and Japan. The 1996 survey, replicating most of the questions from 1991, was fielded in Russia, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Germany.

For further information see ISJP homepage.

The German Socio-Economic Panel

The SOEP is a wide-ranging representative longitudinal study of private households. It provides information on all household members, consisting of Germans living in the Old and New German States, Foreigners, and recent Immigrants to Germany. The Panel was started in 1984. In 2004, there were nearly 12,000 households, and about 22,000 persons sampled. Specific conditions apply for the use of these data for secondary analysis in the ZA-EUROLAB.

For further information see SOEP homepage

In addition the Internet page "Links to context information" provides a list of international and longitudinal data sets such as the PISA survey from the OECD and data from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS).