Micro- and Macro-level Determinants of Participation in Demonstrations: An Analysis of Cross-national Survey Data Harmonized Ex-post

This paper investigates micro- and macro-level determinants of participation in demonstrations worldwide, focusing on the role of resources and grievances across different democratic contexts. The analysis relies on a data set stemming from the ex-post harmonization of five international survey projects covering 100 countries between 1989 and 2009: Americas Barometer, Asia Europe Survey, European Values Study, International Social Survey Programme, and the World Values Survey. Results provide mixed support for previous findings and point to new insights. First, I find that the positive association between education and participation in demonstrations is stronger in democratic countries than in nondemocracies, but there is no evidence of similar variation in the case of income. Second, the effect of trust in parliament is U-shaped, and more pronounced in non-democracies compared to democracies. Overall the findings indicate that the role of resources as well as disaffection with the political system in explaining participation in demonstrations depends on the political context, thus emphasizing the importance of incorporating both levels of analysis in theoretical and empirical models. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges associated with ex-post harmonization of survey data

The Political Parties Crosswalk for mapping party codes in cross-national surveys to Party Facts IDs

The Political Parties Crosswalk (PPC) maps party codes used in questions about party preferences in European cross-national public opinion surveys to Party Facts IDs, which are commonly used identifiers of parties in political science datasets. The PPC, a data linkage tool, supports research that combines data on party support from surveys with characteristics of parties, and in particular, facilitates research that combines data from different survey projects. PPC v.1 covers surveys conducted in Europe in the following projects: European Social Survey, European Values Study, World Values Survey, Asia Europe Survey, Consolidation and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, Integrated and United, Life in Transition Surveys, New Baltic Barometer, New Europe Barometer, and selected waves from the Candidate Countries Eurobarometer, Eurobarometer, and the International Social Survey Programme. In addition to describing the scope and properties of PPC, as well as the steps of data processing and quality assurance, we present case studies that illustrate possible applications in substantive and methodological research

Multi-Project Assessments of Sample Quality in Cross-National Surveys: The Role of Weights in Applying External and Internal Measures of Sample Bias

This paper examines existing methods of evaluating sample quality, showing that their practical utility and applicability to large-scale cross-project comparisons depends on whether they require auxiliary individual-level data. Among those methods that do not demand any such additional data, we differentiate between two approaches that rely on (i) external criteria, that is, comparisons of sample estimates to benchmarks derived from external population statistics, and (ii) internal criteria, that is, comparisons of subsample estimates to a theoretically derived aprioristic value. Our analyses demonstrate the advantages and limitations of both approaches based on an evaluation of 1,125 national surveys carried out in Europe between 2002 and 2016 within four survey projects: the Eurobarometer, European Quality of Life Survey, European Social Survey, and International Social Survey Programme. We show that the prevailing absence of design weights in cross-national survey datasets severely limits the applicability of external criteria evaluations. In contrast, using internal criteria without any weights proves acceptable because incorporating design weights in calculations of internal sample quality has only minor consequences for estimates of sample bias. Furthermore, applying internal criteria, we find that around 75 percent of samples in the four analyzed projects are not significantly biased. We also identify surveys with extremely high sample bias and investigate its potential sources. The paper concludes with recommendations regarding future research, which are directed at secondary data users, as well as producers of cross-national surveys

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

A Many-analysts Approach to the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

The Economy and Governance as Determinants of Political Trust in Europe: an Analysis of the European Values Study and World Values Survey, 1990-2019

Trust in state institutions is essential for the stability and legitimacy of political regimes. Understood in evaluative terms, political trust has often been linked to the performance of the state and its institutions. The macro-level sources of trust, however, are not well understood owing to the scarcity of empirical tests beyond cross-sectional analyses. This paper examines economic performance and the quality of governance as determinants of political trust in Europe. The analysis relies on data from the European Values Study and the World Values Survey between 1990 and 2019, covering 42 European countries surveyed at least twice. The modelling strategy explicitly distinguishes between-country variation from within-country variation in macro-level characteristics, enabling the examination of cross-national and longitudinal effects. The results provide evidence of associations between economic performance - economic development and unemployment - and political trust in the expected directions, with some differences across European regions. Further, countries with less corruption tend to enjoy higher political trust, but the effects of changes in the level of corruption on trust depend on the corruption indicator used. Finally, improvements in the quality of electoral democracy are associated with declines in political trust

Preferred Levels of Income Inequality in a Period of Systemic Change: Analysis of Data from the Polish Panel Survey, POLPAN 1988–2003

Rising trends in economic inequality are well-established across many affluent nations. However, researchers have accrued considerably less knowledge regarding the economic attitudes and preferences of individuals living within the context of increasing inequality, especially in developing or transition countries. To gain leverage on this topic, we utilize data from Polish Panel Survey (POLPAN) from 1988–2003 to examine change over time in respondents’ preferred levels of income inequality. Results show that Poles tend to accept higher levels of income inequality over time. This effect increases with time, even after controlling for respondents’ meritocratic beliefs and attitudes toward state intervention. In addition, this rise in preferred income inequality changes in accordance with actual and perceived changes in the earnings distribution. After describing the patters of variation in acceptance of income inequality between different social groups, we discuss the implications of individuals’ evolving benchmarks for preferred levels of inequality

Harmonized Income Dataset

The Harmonized Income Dataset provides harmonized individual-level survey variables on personal and household income from 19 major cross-national survey projects, as well as technical variables necessary to match them to the Survey Data Recycling Master File version 1 (SDR v.1, DOI:10.7910/DVN/VWGF5Q), which contains harmonized survey items on political participation, political attitudes, as well as their selected correlates