SEAMS - Standardized ethnically attributed mass surveys

SEAMS integrates a large number of global and regional mass surveys, such as the World Values Surveys and the Afrobarometer. It serves two purposes:
- First, it provides standardized information for major public opinion concepts, for instance on (dis-)satisfaction with government institutions and perceptions of belonging to a discriminated group.
- Second, it provides systematic information on survey respondents’ ethnicity, region of residence, language, religion, and phenotype, which is linked to existing datasets, including EPR and CPSD.
Thereby, it enables researchers to study how time-varying country- or group-level variables (such as democratization, GDP growth, and ethnic power-sharing) affect public opinion and vice versa.
The current version integrates information from 98 unique survey waves, which together cover 2’071’315 respondents nested in 1372 country years and 148 countries.
Future releases will add more variables (e.g., on ethnic identification and party choice), surveys, and information on the heterogeneous question items underlying SEAMS’ standardized variables.