Sociology

Conducted biennially since 1952, the survey gauges public sentiment on the political process, the role of government, and social and economic issues. This site permits download of the ANES datasets, most of which are also available through ICPSR and CISER.

Conducted on behalf of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, it measures the concerns of Americans regarding economic, political, and military engagement in foreign affairs. Conducted every four years from 1974 to 2002 and now biennially, fulltext reports results are accessible on the site. Recent years incorporate parallel surveys in EU countries, Mexico, and Korea. The 2006 survey included representative polls of China and India. Most years can be obtained as numeric files from ICPSR and CISER.

Recent political and economic polling results, as well as "special reports" that examine attitudes toward social issues and consumer behavior. Some multinational studies are included. (Olin Library owns the Gallup Poll Monthly in electronic and hardcopy.) Codebooks and datasets for many Gallup polls are available from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research site (see separate entry below). GallupBrain is a question bank that allows searching for survey questions in over 70 years of Gallup polls. Cornell doesn't subscribe so you can't view response frequencies, but GallupBrain is a useful tool if you're looking for question wording.

The GSS has been conducted since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center. It measures attitudes toward social and public policy issues, economic status, political events, work, and family life. Some questions are asked each year, and topical modules are administered on a rotating basis that focus on current topics such as gender equity, religious beliefs, and perception of work. The 1972-2006 file was released in May 2007.

The Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) software at UC Berkeley allows you to construct tables from the 1972-2006 cumulative file based on variables you select, perform custom extracts, and create and recode variables. The NORC site has a similar data analysis tool using the NESSTAR software. You can use recent GSS years from the Association of Religion Data Archives, view responses to individual questions crosstabulated by respondent categories, and view frequencies using spiffy graphics. (CISER has the GSS data files on its server.)

Brings together recent and historical polls conducted on national issues by many organizations, with emphasis on politics and campaigns. The search feature pinpoints polls and questions on specific topics. Produced by the National Journal.

A complete list of public opnion resources can be found using Cornell University's CISER Data Archive linked above