Political Science — Public Opinion & Polling, Worldwide

Return to Subject List | American Politics | Comparative Politics | International Relations | Methodology | Political Theory | All Titles | Department of Political Science


See also: For additional surveys, for sets of other types of data, and for assistance on working with data, visit Social Science Data Services (SSDS) in the Main Library.

Foreign & Multinational Polls
Major U.S. Media Polls
Public Opinion in the U.S.
Public Opinion Studies in Scholarly Journals
Survey Research: Learning & Teaching


Foreign & Multinational Polls

  • Afrobarometer – Africa Public Opinion Research A series of comparative national opinion surveys on a wide range of topics, beginning in 1993. Results, briefings and working papers available for download.
  • Canadian Opinion Research Archive (CORA) "... contains hundreds of surveys including thousands of discrete items collected by major commercial Canadian firms dating back to the 1970s." Available to academics, researchers, and journalists. Register for full access to archives.
  • European Public Opinion Analysis Sponsored by the European Commission since 1973. Provides current and past summaries and full reports from the general and topical survey series as well as links to other European polls.
  • European Social Survey "...a biennial multi-country survey covering over 20 nations has been mapping attitudinal and behavioral changes in Europe’s social, political and moral climate." Click for full description and link.
  • ICPSR, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research More than polls alone, includes the "world's largest archive of digital social science data." Use with statistical software such as SPSS or SAS. "ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction." For help, consult with Social Science Data Services.
  • Index to ICPSR Data Sets This University of Michigan site helps researchers to find surveys and polls on particular subjects by providing an electronic index to the data sets.
  • IPOLL Roper Center for Public Opinion accesses over 500,000 survey questions since 1935 broken down by percentages for each value.
  • Latin American Public Opinion Project – LAPOP Surveys on views of politics, corruption, etc., conducted within Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela as well as Albania, Israel, Madagascar, and the U.S. Availability to full datasets might involve administrative fee.
  • Mansfield Asian Opinion Poll Database Provides polls on policy-related issues from major media organizations and others in Japan and South Korea, from 2004-2006. Previously not available in English.
  • National Opinion Research Center (NORC) Specialized domestic and international surveys, with the oldest dating back to 1941. Includes the General Social Survey, which has been conducted since 1972. Datasets, questionnaires, frequency distributions, or analyses of some studies can be downloaded.
  • Pew Global Attitudes Project A series of worldwide public opinion surveys, of almost 75,000 people among 50 populations (49 countries plus the Palestinian Authority). Includes large array of subjects, e.g., people's assessments of their own lives, views on globalization, changes in attitudes toward democracy, views on the place of Islamic faith in public policy within countries with significant Muslim populations, and opinions toward the United States.
  • Polling the Nations Searchable and browseable database of over 350,000 questions from more than 14,000 public opinion surveys conducted by more than 700 different organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
  • Post-United States Elections Survey: A Survey of Public Opinion in France, Germany, and the United States, 2004 Poll of the attitudes of the public in the U.S., France, and Germany after the re-election of President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Click for full description and the links to resources.
  • Program on International Policy Attitudes Project of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International Security Studies (CISSM). Conducts polls, domestic and across nations, to study American options toward international issues.
  • Public Opinion Foundation: FOM (Russia) Begun in 1992. Provides weekly highlights of selected Russian polls as well as a database to locate and view responses to questions.
  • Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Includes the Public Opinion Archives, back to 1947, as well as an online catalog of holdings. For help, contact the Librarians in Social Science Data Services in the Main Library.
  • U.K. Data Archive – Major Studies A very large list, with instructions on access, to major U.K. and European surveys conducted by governmental and social organizations.
  • World Public Opinion "The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) launched WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) in January 2006 to provide a source of in-depth information and analysis on public opinion from around the world on international issues."

Major U.S. Media Polls

Public Opinion in the U.S.

  • American National Election Studies (ANES) "... produces high quality data on voting, public opinion, and political participation to serve the research needs of social scientists, teachers, students, policy makers and journalists..." Provides current and historical longitudinal and time series data for analyses of public opinion and electoral behavior.
  • Gallup Brain A searchable database containing the results from over 125,000 Gallup opinion questions dating back to 1935.
  • ICPSR, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research More than polls alone, includes the "world's largest archive of digital social science data." Use with statistical software such as SPSS or SAS. "ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction." For help, consult with Social Science Data Services.
  • Index to ICPSR Data Sets This University of Michigan site helps researchers to find surveys and polls on particular subjects by providing an electronic index to the data sets.
  • IPOLL Roper Center for Public Opinion accesses over 500,000 survey questions since 1935 broken down by percentages for each value.
  • Minority Data Resource Center An important and extensive initiative by the ICPSR which"... brings together in one place existing datasets on race and ethnicity with regard to subjects such as..." Click for full description and the links to resources.
  • National Opinion Research Center (NORC) Specialized domestic and international surveys, with the oldest dating back to 1941. Includes the General Social Survey, which has been conducted since 1972. Datasets, questionnaires, frequency distributions, or analyses of some studies can be downloaded.
  • Pew Global Attitudes Project A series of worldwide public opinion surveys, of almost 75,000 people among 50 populations (49 countries plus the Palestinian Authority). Includes large array of subjects, e.g., people's assessments of their own lives, views on globalization, changes in attitudes toward democracy, views on the place of Islamic faith in public policy within countries with significant Muslim populations, and opinions toward the United States.
  • Pew Hispanic Center Dataset Download These datasets date back to 2002 and are available for secondary analysis.
  • Pew Internet & American Life Project These datasets date back to 2000 and are available for secondary analysis.
  • Pew Research Center for the People & the Press Data Archive These datasets date back to 1997 and are available for secondary analysis.
  • Polling the Nations Searchable and browseable database of over 350,000 questions from more than 14,000 public opinion surveys conducted by more than 700 different organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
  • PollingReport.com An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion. For additional data, see Polling Report Subscriber Pages.
  • Polling Report Subscriber Pages Check the Electronic Resources list for username and password. See, too, PollingReport.com.
  • Pollster ".... tracks, aggregates, and analyses political polls (including presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial races).... provides links to other polling and survey research groups and resources, and .... explains how political polling is done.
  • Post-United States Elections Survey: A Survey of Public Opinion in France, Germany, and the United States, 2004 Poll of the attitudes of the public in the U.S., France, and Germany after the re-election of President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election. Click for full description and the links to resources.
  • Program on International Policy Attitudes Project of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International Security Studies (CISSM). Conducts polls, domestic and across nations, to study American options toward international issues.
  • Public Agenda Research Studies Full service opinion research organization started by Daniel Yankelovich and Cyrus Vance in 1975. See "Research Studies by Topic" which includes downloadable reports, data, etc. on subjects such as education, foreign policy, and media.
  • Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Includes the Public Opinion Archives, back to 1947, as well as an online catalog of holdings. For help, contact the Librarians in Social Science Data Services in the Main Library.
  • Social Science Data Services—NU Library "Acquires and maintains an extensive collection of numeric computer data files used for secondary analysis in the social sciences."

Public Opinion Studies in Scholarly Journals

  • Communication Abstracts Citations and abstracts of Mass Communication; Small Group Communication; Organizational Communication; Public Opinion; and other topics.
  • International Bibliography of the Social Sciences Citations from an international selection of publications, including over 2600 journals, in all areas of the social sciences with emphasis on economics, political science, sociology and anthropology.
  • ISI Emerging Markets Economic conditions in developing countries of Latin America, Asia and Europe. Includes industry and analyst reports, macroeconomic statistics and forecasts, legal and regulatory information, and opinion polls from the following emerging markets: Baltic States (including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic (including Slovakia), Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia (including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), Turkey, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, China, India, South Korea and Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand).
  • JSTOR Provides electronic access to back issues of core scholarly journals including almost 30 in Political Science. To browse the list of archives, click here. Articles have been digitized, providing full-image access.
  • PAIS International Bibliographic index to the literature of public policy, social policy, and the social sciences in general. Journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, directories, serials, reports of public, intergovernmental, and private organizations, and most other forms of printed literature from all over the world are indexed. This database covers 1972 to the present. Go to PAIS International Archive for coverage from 1937-1976. (The archive will eventually cover 1915 through 1976.)
  • Social Science Data Services—NU Library "Acquires and maintains an extensive collection of numeric computer data files used for secondary analysis in the social sciences."
  • Worldwide Political Science Abstracts Citations with abstracts from more than 1100 journals in political science and related disciplines. Coverage is international in scope.


Survey Research: Learning & Teaching

  • Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics, 3 volumes, 2007.
  • Media Guide to Survey Research An introduction to public opinion research from the World Association for Public Opinion Research. Aimed mostly at journalists, but useful to anyone who wants to learn how to tell if a poll is scientific, biased, or valid.
  • Questionbank: Social Surveys & Research Questionnaires Online (U.K.) "This website has been designed to help users locate examples of specific research questions and see them in the context within which they have been used for data collection. It is intended to assist with the design of new survey questionnaires, the search for data for secondary analysis, and the teaching of survey research methods."
  • Polling 101 From Roper, a description of basic principles of polling, sampling, how to read tables, and related lessons.
  • Polling 201 Fundamentals of analysis of polls.
  • Social Science Data Services—NU Library "Acquires and maintains an extensive collection of numeric computer data files used for secondary analysis in the social sciences."
  • SPSS Statistical software is available on the Library's Information Commons workstations and within the Library's Government and Geographic Information and Data Services department. The latter also hosts SAS, GIS, and other software packages.
  • SurveyMonkey Easy, quick and free (up to 100 responses) tool for learning through creating online surveys. 
  • Survey Random Sample Calculator Use to calculate how many people out of a specified population size would need to be interviewed; specify acceptable margin of error; calculates various confidence levels.
Return to Subject List | American Politics | Comparative Politics | International Relations | Methodology | Political Theory | All Titles | Department of Political Science

For further information, contact:

Lucy E. Lyons
Collection Analysis, Journalism, and Political Science
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
(847) 491-2229, fax 467-7899
l-lyons@northwestern.edu
Office Location: Room 2623, 2nd Floor, East Tower, Main Library

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Last updated: 03/06/08
March 6, 2008