RESEARCH DESIGN OF CROSS-NATIONAL ATTITUDINAL SURVEYS

Abstract

Though solidly founded by famous sociologists earlier in the twentieth century, comparative sociology lost its foothold and languished in recent decades. However, interest in cross-national studies is rekindling. Unfortunately, cross-national attitudinal surveys are extraordinarily complex and expensive. The many problems of such research are discussed in terms of design, development and execution but not data analysis^{Note 1)}. An optimization approach is suggested to achieve a realistic and practical level of comparability.