{"id":523,"date":"2016-06-20T14:20:13","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T19:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dataharmonization.org\/?p=523"},"modified":"2016-06-20T14:20:13","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T19:20:13","slug":"the-harmonization-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.asc.ohio-state.edu\/dataharmonization\/the-harmonization-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Harmonization Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Irina Tomescu-Dubrow and Kazimierz M. Slomczynski, Polish Academy of Sciences and CONSIRT<\/em><\/p>\n

The Democratic Values and Protest Behavior: Data Harmonization, Measurement Comparability, and Multi-Level Modeling study <\/em>is financed by the (Polish) National Centre of Science and supported by The Ohio State University. CONSIRT hosts the project in Poland. While there are a number of survey data harmonization projects that have informed our own, each with their own acronyms (Dubrow and Tomescu-Dubrow 2014), we have come to call this large-scale research, simply, the Harmonization Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To test this model we need data at both the individual- and the country-level that vary over time and across space. The Harmonization Project sets out to create comparable measurements of political protest, social values, and demographics via ex-post harmonization of variables from international survey projects and append them with macro-level variables from external sources such as the World Bank, OSCE, UN agencies, Transparency International, and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Substantively, the project engages with the relationship between democracy and protest behavior in comparative, cross-national perspective. Political protest can be of various types, such as participation in demonstrations, signing petitions, or contacting politicians. Drawing on extant research (Benson and Rochon 2004; Kriesi 2004; Dubrow, Slomczynski and Tomescu-Dubrow 2008; Dalton Sickle and Weldon 2009; Marien, Hooghe and Quintelier 2010; Vrablikova 2013), we develop a two-level model where protest (individual-level) is explained by a set of theoretically-informed characteristics of people and countries in which they live (country-level), and cross-level interactions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Table <\/strong>1<\/strong>. Selected International Survey Projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Abbrev.<\/strong><\/td>\nSurvey Project<\/strong><\/td>\nTime span<\/strong><\/td>\nWaves<\/strong><\/td>\nFiles<\/strong><\/td>\nData Sets<\/strong><\/td>\nCases<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Numbers<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AFB<\/td>\nAfrobarometer<\/td>\n1999-2009<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n66<\/td>\n98942<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AMB<\/td>\nAmericas Barometer<\/td>\n2004-2012<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n92<\/td>\n151341<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ARB<\/td>\nArab Barometer<\/td>\n2006-2011<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n19684<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ASB<\/td>\nAsian Barometer<\/td>\n2001-2011<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n43691<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ASES<\/td>\nAsia Europe Survey<\/td>\n2000<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n18253<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CB<\/td>\nCaucasus Barometer<\/td>\n2009-2012<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n24621<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CDCEE<\/td>\nConsolidation of Democracy in Central & Eastern Europe<\/td>\n1990-2001<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n27<\/td>\n28926<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
CNEP<\/td>\nComparative National Elections Project<\/td>\n2004-2006<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n13978<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
EB<\/td>\nEurobarometer<\/td>\n1983-2012<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n152<\/td>\n138753<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
EQLS<\/td>\nEuropean Quality of Life Survey<\/td>\n2003-2012<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n93<\/td>\n105527<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ESS<\/td>\nEuropean Social Survey<\/td>\n2002-2013<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n146<\/td>\n281496<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
EVS\/WVS<\/td>\nEuropean Values Study \/ World Values Survey<\/td>\n1981-2009<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n312<\/td>\n423084<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ISJP<\/td>\nInternational Social Justice Project<\/td>\n1991-1996<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n21<\/td>\n25805<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
ISSP<\/td>\nInternational Social Survey Programme<\/td>\n1985-2013<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n363<\/td>\n493243<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
LB<\/td>\nLatinobarometro<\/td>\n1995-2010<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n260<\/td>\n294965<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
LITS<\/td>\nLife in Transition Survey<\/td>\n2006-2010<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n64<\/td>\n67866<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NBB<\/td>\nNew Baltic Barometer<\/td>\n1993-2004<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n21601<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PA2<\/td>\nPolitical Action II<\/td>\n1979-1981<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n6682<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PA8NS<\/td>\nPolitical Action – An Eight Nation Study<\/td>\n1973-1976<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n12588<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PPE7N<\/td>\nPolitical Participation and Equality in Seven Nations<\/td>\n1966-1971<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n16522<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
VPCPCE<\/td>\nValues and Political Change in Postcommunist Europe<\/td>\n1993<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n5769<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n1966 -2013<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n89<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n81<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n1726<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n2293337<\/em><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Note: In this table\u00a0EVS and WVS are joined in one row because they share one data file. The total number of cases \u00a0refers to all cases in source data files.<\/p>\n

We selected 22 well-known international survey projects \u2013 listed in Table 1 \u2013 that span almost 50 years (1966-2013) and a total of 142 countries or territories.1<\/sup> In all survey projects, the units of observations are individuals. We took into account only projects designed primarily for academic use and with coverage of at least three countries. The data from selected projects are in the public domain, either in social science data archives or projects\u2019 own webpages that are open to scholars. Documentation of these projects is in English. Surveys contain political (e.g. protest), demographic (e.g. gender and age) and social stratification (e.g. education) items, but vary somewhat in their content and form.<\/p>\n

From the selected projects, we pooled 81 data files, with 89 waves, into a relational database. It is a database containing 1726 national samples for which interviews were conducted in all waves (project*wave*country). All these surveys cover a total of almost 2.3 million respondents.2<\/sup> The platform for data files of national surveys is organized such that in the future any variable could be extracted and moved to the virtual integrated dataset (see Powa\u0142ko 2014, and in this Newsletter<\/em>).<\/p>\n

We identified relevant original (source) variables that appear in at least five of the survey waves. Using various data processing procedures we produce, in the database, common (target) variables according to a unified measurement scheme. This scheme is well grounded in the past important discussions on ex-post harmonization (Gunther 2003; Minkel 2004; Ehling, Rendtel, et al. 2006; Granda and Blasczyk 2010; Granda, Wolf and Hadron 2010).<\/p>\n

We select two types of source variables for harmonization: technical variables, provided by survey administrators, and variables of substantive interest. The list of variables is not closed, thanks to the flexible set-up of the programming environment we are using.<\/p>\n

The Harmonization Project is work in progress. As it unfolds, it prompts us to reconsider how existing survey data can best be used in the harmonization framework by including controls of various quality aspects of existing surveys and harmonization procedures. We construct quality controls of the general survey documentation, the specific data description, and original data in the computer files. In addition, we apply quality control to specific harmonization procedures that could influence validity and reliability of the target variables. We suggest that quality-control variables for each of these aspects be included in substantive analyses (see Slomczynski and Tomescu-Dubrow in this Newsletter<\/em>). Their relevance has to be empirically assessed.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n