Welcome
This guide provides links to survey resources to help with your research for GOV 1010. If you have questions about Library resources and services, we would be happy to hear from you.
Relevant Oxford Bibliographies
Oxford Bibliographies Online is a series of selective online guides to the essential literature in subjects in the humanities and social sciences.
Annual Reviews
Annual Reviews
Offers authoritative syntheses of the primary research literature in 29 academic disciplines. A search of the Annual Reviews can help you easily identify the principal contributions to your field. Articles are written by authors who are recognized experts in the field.
Harvard Subscription Databases
- Roper Center for Public Opinion (Harvard Login)Access to aggregate and raw public opinion data. Data collection is focused on United States public opinion but also includes growing collections of (micro-level) European, Latin American (Latin American Databank) and Japanese (JPOLL) polls. The data archive (micro-level data) is searchable by keyword, date, and survey organization.
- Gallup Analytics (Harvard Login)Daily U.S. Data - economic, well-being, and political data collected daily since 2008 of 1,000+ interviews; World Poll Data - economic, social, and well-being data collected annually since 2005 in 160+ countries, 1.5 million+ interviews worldwide. Additional data is available from the Gallup Brain link at the bottom of the site.
- Polling the Nations (Harvard Login)Questions and responses from surveys conducted by polling organizations from 1986 to the present in the United States and more than 80 other countries. Raw data not included.
- Latin American Public Opinion Project (Harvard Login)Surveys on democratic values and behaviors in 23 countries in Latin America. Includes micro level data. Some historical data is available on the Harvard Dataverse (restricted to Harvard affiliates).
Free Resources - United States
- American National Election StudiesANES provides data on voting, public opinion, and political participation. Free registration is required to view and download data.
- Cooperative Congressional Election StudyCCES is a 50,000+ person national stratified sample survey administered by YouGov. (Note that although this does not use probability sampling, it is widely used in academic research. )
- General Social SurveyPersonal-interview survey designed to monitor changes in both social characteristics and attitudes currently being conducted in the United States 1972-present. Raw data included. You can access and analyze the data using the GSS Explorer.
- Odum Institute ArchiveDatabase maintained by the University of North Carolina provides access to the Harris Poll, Carolina Poll, Southern Poll, National Network of State Polls and Knight Foundation Community Poll collections. Raw data included.
- Pew Research CenterProvides data and analysis on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. Includes some raw data.
- PollingReportAggregates polling data from dozens of prominent pollsters.
- Reuters PollingWeekly polls on a variety of topics since 2012.
- SDA: Survey Documentation and AnalysisSDA is a tool for online analysis of certain survey data. Surveys included are the General Social Survey (GSS), American National Election Studies (ANES), Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) and more.
Free Resources - Global
- Resources for Conducting Cross-National Survey ResearchAn article providing a good overview of resources for Cross-National Research.
- Angus Reid InstituteThis institute commissions, conducts and disseminates original, publicly accessible and impartial statistical public opinion polling research and policy analysis.
- Comparative National Election ProjectA partnership among scholars who have conducted election surveys on five continents. Founded in the late 1980s, it now includes 59 surveys from 1990 to 2020 in 30 different countries, with multiple election surveys in 16 countries.
- Comparative Study of Electoral SystemsA collaborative program of research among election study teams from around the world.
- East Asian Social SurveyEASS is dedicated to the promotion of comparative studies on diverse aspects of social lives in East Asia.
- European Social SurveyThe survey measures the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour patterns of diverse populations in more than thirty nations.
- Global Barometer SurveysSystematic comparative survey of attitudes and values toward politics, power, reform, democracy and citizens' political actions in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arabic region. It is based on a common module of questions contained in regional barometer surveys.
See also: Afrobarometer, Arabbarometer, Asianbarometer, Caucasus Barometer, Latinobarometro, and Eurobarometer. - International Social Survey ProgrammeA cross-national collaboration program conducting annual surveys on diverse topics relevant to social sciences.
- IRI Public Opinion PollsThe International Republican Institute conducts public opinion polls in many countries around the world with an emphasis on democracy and elections.
- Pew Research Center International AffairsProvides data and analysis on the issues, attitudes and trends around the world. Includes some raw data.
- WorldPublicOpinion.orgInformation and analysis on public opinion from around the world on international issues. Includes extensive links to additional public opinion sites, by region and topic.
- World Values SurveyData and online analysis tracking changing values across countries since 1981.
See also: European Values Study
Sources for Historic Public Opinion
Data Archives: A Sample
- Harvard DataverseIncludes the world's largest collection of social science research data. Collections include data sets from government entities, universities, and individual researchers. Data can be downloaded in multiple formats, if permissions allow, and in some cases subset for analysis. Harvard Login required for access to certain datasets.
- Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) (Harvard Login)One of the world’s oldest and largest social science data archives; based at the University of Michigan. Categories of datasets include census enumerations; community and urban studies; economic behavior and attitudes; government structures, policies and capabilities; social indicators; and much more. Need to create an individual account to download the data.
- Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA)Data collections include sociological surveys, election studies, longitudinal studies, opinion polls, and census data
- GESIS: Data Archive for the Social Sciences (DAS)Germany’s central infrastructure for the registration, documentation and digital archiving of quantitative research data which can be used to analyze societal developments from a national, internationally comparative or historical perspective.
- UK Data ArchiveUK's largest collection of social, economic and population data.
Selected Books of Interest
Public Opinion and Related Journals
- Sage Research Methods (Harvard Login) A research methods tool providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. It contains a methods library with more than 1000 books, journal articles, and instructional videos by academics from across the social sciences.
Survey Methods Journals
- Field Methods (Harvard Login) Field methods does not exclusively publish material on survey methods, but in recent years survey methods has been regularly covered.
- Journal of Official Statistics (Harvard Login) A quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Statistics Sweden. JOS publishes research articles on survey methodology and other aspects of production of official statistics.
- Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology (Harvard Login) Sponsored by AAPOR and the American Statistical Association. Its objective is to publish cutting edge scholarly articles on statistical and methodological issues for sample surveys, censuses, administrative record systems, and other related data.
- Methods, Data, Analyses Publishes research on all questions important to quantitative methods, with a special emphasis on survey methodology.
- Sage Research Methods (Harvard Login) A research methods tool providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. It contains a methods library with more than 1000 books, journal articles, and instructional videos by academics from across the social sciences.
- Social Science Computer Review (Harvard Login) An interdisciplinary journal covering social science instructional and research applications of computing, as well as societal impacts of information technology.
- Survey Methodology (Harvard Login) For over 40 years, it has been a source of key information on survey methods for statisticians.
- Survey Methods: Insights from the Field A peer-reviewed online journal. Its goal is to promote professional exchange on practical survey research issues and discussion on new and promising paths in survey research.
- Survey Practice Published by the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
- The Survey Statistician Newsletter of the International Association of Survey Statisticians
