Latin American Public Opinion Project

The Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) is a research institute specializing in the development, implementation, and analysis of public opinion surveys. Founded by Mitchell A. Seligson over two decades ago, its principal focus is on governance and democracy in Latin America. The AmericasBarometer is the best-known survey produced by LAPOP. It is the only survey of democratic public opinion and behaviour that covers the Americas (North, Central, South, and the Caribbean). It measures democratic values and behaviours in the Americas using national probability samples of voting-age adults. Elizabeth Zechmeister is the director of LAPOP. Noam Lupu is associate director of LAPOP.
History.
LAPOP has its origins in studies of democratic values in Costa Rica. This pioneering public opinion research took place in the 1970s, a time in which much of the rest of Latin America was under the control of authoritarian regimes, prohibiting studies of public opinion. As democratization expanded in Latin America, LAPOP grew in scope and size. Today LAPOP regularly carries out public opinion surveys in nearly every country in Latin America, Canada, the United States, and much of Caribbean.
Structure.
LAPOP is housed at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Vanderbilt is a research university that has been a leader in the study of Latin America and the Caribbean for over 60 years. At this host institution, a team of faculty, staff, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students designs and analyzes the public opinion surveys generated by the project. The group also edits and publishes the regular Insights Series reports, each one of which examines one facet of public opinion. LAPOP’s network extends far beyond the Vanderbilt campus, to include partner institutions throughout the Americas.
LAPOP functions as a consortium, working in partnership with numerous academic and non-governmental institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. It collaborates with these institutions, sharing ideas for survey content and working together to disseminate the results of the public opinion surveys to the citizens of participating countries. This dissemination of results takes the form of systematic country reports, comparative studies, panel presentations, and media interviews.
AmericasBarometer.
In 2004, LAPOP established the AmericasBarometer as multi-country, regularly-conducted surveys of democratic values and behaviours in the Americas, organized by a consortium of academic and think-tank partners in the hemisphere. The first round included voting-age respondents from 11 countries. The second round of surveys took place in 2006 and included 22 countries from the hemisphere. The third round, 2008, included 24 countries in the Americas. The 2010 and 2012 round included 26 countries across North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean. The 2014/15 round consisted of over 50,000 interviews in 28 countries. The most recent round, 2016/17, comprises 29 national surveys and more than 43,000 interviews.
Methods and practices.
Cutting-edge methods and transparent practices ensure that data collected by LAPOP are of the highest quality. These methods and practices include the following:
Post-survey.
LAPOP’s resources and expertise allow it to conduct special projects requested by scholars, government institutions, and agencies concerned with democratic development. These have recently included novel experiments embedded within national surveys to assess issues of ethnicity and violence. In addition, these include an extensive new focus on randomized block experiments as a means of program evaluation.
Use of LAPOP data.
The data are used by academic researchers; the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in its efforts to promote democracy and good governance in Latin America and the Caribbean; the World Bank in its Governance Indicators series; the Inter-American Development Bank in its numerous research projects; the United Nations Development Programme and the Organization of American States in their democracy programs; and most significantly, by the governments of several Latin American countries as a source of independent information with which to assess public opinion and shape policy.