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The Survey Method

An Indispensable Tool for Social Science Research Everywhere?

City University of New York

This article reviews the proliferation of the survey method beyond the Western democracies of North America and Europe with particular emphasis on cross-national survey projects and the study of public opinion on broadly defined political issues. Discussing rules formulated by Jowell and others, a set of principles for conducting cross-national surveys is offered. Based on a case study of extending political surveys to East Germany after the fall of Communism, and beyond more technical and organizational aspects, the more general question of societal conditions and their relationship to the validity of survey data is discussed. Considering both post-Communist and Asian countries, it is suggested that to ensure the validity of survey data, culture-specific adjustments are necessary and that meaningful comparative cross-national analysis must also include nonquantitative components. The current trend of extending cross-national projects to a large number of rather heterogeneous countries is seen as producing data of dubious quality.

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