Findings from International Surveys: 2021

Do people support democracy? Do they trust their public institutions? How do they feel about the media? 

These are questions we in the DRG sector must ask as we design and implement our programs. Many surveys around the world cover these and other issues of interest to us, but their data often cannot be compared across countries or regions due to differences in question wording, data collection methodology, and/or sampling or weighting techniques. Still, together they help paint a useful picture of where democracy stands among the world’s people and can point to ways in which we can protect and strengthen democracy.
 

This edition of the DRG Learning Digest focuses on:

• Global Barometer Surveys: these surveys cover 70 percent of the world population and use similar methodologies across five regions, allowing for comparisons across countries and time.
• Other international surveys: these surveys are focused on particular regions or DRG topics.
• DRG Assessment Surveys: these surveys have been conducted by Missions around the world to better understand the DRG context in their countries.
• Survey best practices: the final section provides some tips for assessing survey quality and best practices.