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Jonathan Kelley
Krzysztof Zagorski
M.D.R. Evans
The International Survey of Economic Attitudes (ISEA) is a collaborative international project which conducts tri-annual surveys in half a dozen nations, each based on large, representative national samples. The first round was in 1991-1993 (Australia, Hungary, Poland) and the second round in 1994-1997 (Australia, Bulgaria, Finland, and Poland, with the Netherlands still to come). The third round will be in 1998-2000. We hope to extend the geographic coverage to several developing nations in this round.
The ISEA is an off-shoot of the International Social Survey Programme's long established 'Ideology of Inequality' project. The International Social Survey Programme is one of sociology's best known and most successful international programs, annually collecting exactly comparable attitude and value data from large, representative national samples in 28 nations. Its surveys typically include about 60 questions, using exactly the same wording and sequencing in all nations, plus about 25 carefully measured demographic and background variables coded to rigorous academic standards. The 'Inequality' project began with data from nine nations in 1987 (including Hungary and Poland, at the time still Communist). It was repeated in 18 nations in 1992 (Australia, Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, East Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, and the USA). It will be repeated again in 1999 in 28 nations. The 'Inequality' module was originally developed by two of the ISEA principal investigators and the drafting groups for the 1987, 1992 and 1999 surveys chaired by them.
The ISEA further develops and greatly extends the range of topics covered by the 'Ideology of Inequality' module, asking about 400 questions (around 200 are asked of everyone; about 150 only of those currently employed; and about 50 asked only of those who once owned their own business). The issues covered include:
Income inequality -- education, authority and other causes of actual differences in income; and the normative views that legitimate income inequality in the eyes of ordinary citizens; the effect of economic development on inequality and attitudes toward inequality.
Social class -- causes of people's actual class location; subjective influences on perceptions of class and class conflict; and its political and economic consequences; and
Economic policy -- citizens' views on the proper organization of the economy, especially concerning redistribution, government ownership and regulation, tariffs and subsidies; and the effect of income inequality and social class on these. Government versus private employment
ISEA thus deals with several of sociology's fundamental problems, ones with important theoretical implications for economics and political science and important practical implications for economic development.
The ISEA is creative, extending existing research in new directions and opening up unexplored areas. Much of it is based on innovative new measurement instruments -- particularly concerning public attitudes toward inequality, perceptions of class, and economic policy.
Most measures are carefully designed multiple item scales, rigorously tested in several nations. Such scales give much more persuasive and precise measurement than single items - a vital matter in cross-national research on attitudes and values. All questions are asked in precisely the same way in all nations.
The ISEA group has published extensively in the world's best sociology journals:
Work in progress includes:
"Economic Change and the Legitimation Of Inequality: The Transition From Socialism to the Free Market in Poland and Hungary, 1987-1997"; "Subjective Social Class: International and Individual Level Differences in 21 Nations, 1987-1997"; "Industrialization and Income Inequality: Brazil 1973-1988"; "Human Capital and the Legitimation of Inequality: Public Opinion in Three Nations".
Institutions involved in the ISEA are:
The ISEA is primarily an academic research project, with the data generally available to members of the project and their students. If you would like to join the project, please get in touch with us. The requirements are consent of the principal investigators and the contribution of an ISEA survey. Specifically the survey needs to be a high quality, nationally representative sample of 1000 or more cases, including the complete ISEA in a form exactly comparable to other surveys in the project, conducted in a country not yet covered by the ISEA. The survey might be of your own country or another. A survey in the USA, Asia, or Latin America would be particularly welcome.
e-mail: Jonathan Kelley: kelley@international-survey.org
M.D.R.Evans: evans@international-survey.org
Krzysztof Zagorski: zagorski@optimus.waw.pl
Post: ISP, RSSS, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia
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