RC17 - Comparative Public Opinion

The Global Barometer Surveys (GBS) convened a two-day business meeting in New York on January 21–22, 2025. Representatives from the five constituent regional barometer projects reviewed GBS progress, discussed the US-China perceptions module, refined questionnaire modules on populism and social media, and planned the release timeline for Wave 5 data collection. On January 23, Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute hosted a public panel, "Global Perspectives on Democracy: Insights from Four Regional Barometer Surveys." Moderated by Professor Andrew Nathan (Columbia University), the panel featured Boniface Dulani (Afrobarometer) on the future of African democracy, Min-hua Huang (Asian Barometer) on perceptions of US-China competition in East Asia, and Marta Lagos (Latinobarómetro) on the resilience of democracy in Latin America.

The WAPOR 77th Annual Conference and the WAPOR Asia Pacific 7th Annual Conference were held jointly in Seoul, South Korea, July 28–31, 2024, under the theme "The Soul of Public Opinion Research: Liberty, Quality, and Humanity." The conference was hosted by Sungkyunkwan University's Survey Research Center and co-organized with Seoul National University's Institute of Social Development and Policy Research, the Korean Sociological Association, and other partners. Conference leadership included Conference Chair Professor Wolfgang Aschauer (University of Salzburg), Local Conference Chair Professor Jibum Kim (Sungkyunkwan University), and Asia Pacific Conference Chair Professor Seokho Kim (Seoul National University). RC17 members organized two panel sessions presenting comparative survey research findings. RC17 Chair Min-hua Huang was also invited to serve as WAPOR's Taiwan representative.

At the 27th World Congress of Political Science, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 15–19, 2023, under the theme "Politics in the Age of Transnational Crises: Vulnerability and Resilience," the congress drew 2,995 participants from 98 countries, who presented 2,556 papers across 647 panels — the largest program in IPSA's history at that time. RC17 was responsible for 16 panels, including 2 virtual panels.

Professor Min-hua Huang (National Taiwan University) was elected Chair of IPSA RC17 (Comparative Public Opinion) for the 2023–2027 term. Professor Huang, who also serves as Principal Investigator of the Asian Barometer Survey and Co-Director of Global Barometer Surveys, aims to strengthen RC17's role as a hub for integrating information exchange among major comparative survey programs, including GBS, World Values Survey, ISSP, CSES, CNEP, and WAPOR. A GBS business meeting was also held alongside the congress to finalize the new questionnaire and plan future activities and publications.

On June 16, 2022, the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), Global Barometer Surveys (GBS), and the Eurasia Barometer jointly organized an online webinar presenting the results of the Eurasia Barometer 2021 survey. The webinar, titled "Comparative Study on Social and Political Attitudes in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine," featured presentations by Christian Haerpfer on political attitudes and behaviour in post-Soviet Eurasia, Kseniya Kizilova on perceptions of autocracy and pandemic experiences, Botagoz Rakisheva on internet and social networks in Kazakhstan, Heghine Manasyan on public perceptions of democracy in Armenia, and Koka Kapanadze on social and political attitudes in Georgia. Yun-han Chu (GBS Director) and Kseniya Kizilova (WAPOR Liaison Committee Chair) served as moderators. The event had been postponed by one year due to the pandemic.

In 2016-2017, RC 17 on Comparative Public Opinion continues its activities on organization and promotion of world’s largest social survey programs, including planning of the next wave of the Global Barometer Surveys with Asian Barometer, Arab Barometer, Afro Barometer, Eurasia Barometer and Latino Barometer as well as the World Values Survey wave 7 to be completed in 2017-2018. Survey findings of both survey projects are widely used in scholar papers and presentations (at the IPSA World Congress in Poznan RC17 has organized 12 thematic panels) as well as in series of publications. Among them, The Global Barometers Series published by the Lynne Rienner Publishers. The series includes already three collective monographs: “Party Politics in East Asia: Citizens, Elections, and Democratic Development” (Russell J. Dalton, Doh Chull Shin, and Yun-han Chu, editors, 2008); “Voting and Democratic Citizenship in Africa” (Michael Bratton, editor, 2013); “Growing Up Democratic: Does It Make a Difference?” (David Denemark, Robert Mattes, and Richard G. Niemi, editors, 2016). The next, forth volume which will enrich the series in 2018-2020 is a collective monograph on “People and Democracy in the Developing World: Citizenship in the Early 21st Century” which is devoted to development of democracy, political institutions and transformations of the concept of citizenship. The plan and outline of the new book have been elaborated and approved at the RC17 meeting which took place on September, 27-28, 2018 at Princeton University in USA with the participation of Prof. Yunhan Chu (Asian Barometer & Chair of RC17), Prof. Christian Haerpfer (Eurasia Barometer & Board Member of RC17), Dr Marta Lagos (Latino Barometer & Board Member of RC17), Dr Michael Robbins (Arab Barometer), Prof. Robert Matter (Afro Barometer & Vice-Chair of RC17) and others. The monograph will comprise findings from the Global Barometer Survey and the World Values Survey and will focus on various understandings of democracy around the world; democratic participation in different parts of the world; economic and political performance and perceived supply of democracy; social and partisan cleavages as well as the future of democracy in the developing world.

Members of RC17 contributed to the joint expert meeting of International IDEA, World Values Survey Association and UNDP that took place on April, 27, 2015 at the UN headquarters in New York. The topic of the meeting was “Monitoring the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, Targets and Indicators: The role of Social Surveys”. The main aim of this high level event was to assess the potential of contribution of comparative public opinion research to a successful measurement of Sustainable Development Goals an integral part of the UN post-2015 agenda. The event was timely, as this year sees the official end of the Millennium Development Goals, which the world’s governments agreed to in the United Nations at the beginning of the 21st century as the heart of the development agenda. The event was opened by the welcoming notes of Yves Leterme (Secretary General, International IDEA), Christian Haerpfer (President WVSA & Board member of RC 17) and Paul Ladd (Director, Post-2015 and SDGs Team, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support/BPPS, UNDP). Morning session was open to public and featured expert panels discussing the role of social surveys in the data revolution for sustainable development goals. Panel two of the morning session was devoted to The Data Revolution for Sustainable Development: Priorities, Indicators, and Needs. Marta Lagos (WVSA and Board member of RC17) served as discussant. Among the other contributors to the Expert meeting can be mentioned RC17 board member Marita Carballo (WVSA), and Kseniya Kizilova (Secretary of RC17). The event was webcasted live at UN web-TV. Afternoon session included brainstorming thematic work-groups identifying innovative themes and new issues contributing to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals which could be monitored through the 7th wave of the World Values Survey.