III. >> M  ethodological Approaches to Human Rights Indicators >> Sources and data-generating mechanisms 3 Perception and opinion surveys Perception and opinion surveys aim at polling a representative sample of individuals for their personal views on a given issue. The nature of the information collected is predominantly subjective and not directly quantifiable. To aggregate data, as well as transform these perceptions and opinions into indicators, predetermined or closed formats for the responses along with ordinal or cardinal scales are often used.30 Depending on the circumstances and the theme of the survey, respondents may be consulted through face-to-face interviews, self-administration of the questionnaire or telephone interviews. Perception and opinion surveys are potentially relevant to monitoring all economic, civil, cultural, political and social rights. They constitute a platform and an opportunity for capturing directly people’s views on the functioning and policies of governmental bodies and institutions. Consequently, they can contribute to improving State accountability towards its citizens, in particular when their results are disseminated in the media. As with any survey, the reliability and validity of the results depend critically on the design of the questionnaires, the formulation of the questions (and their testing) and the competence of the interviewers. Several initiatives regularly use household perception and opinion surveys to gather information relevant to human rights. One of the more prominent ones is the Gallup International Association,31 an international network of research institutes that undertakes public opinion surveys in about 60 countries. The Afrobarometer,32 coordinated by different African institutes, is an international measure of public opinion or perception on democracy, governance, livelihoods, participation, conflict and crime. Other similar initiatives are the Latinobarometer (covering South America), the East Asia Barometer and the Eurobarometer. Since the early 1970s, the European Commission has been conducting Eurobarometer surveys in all member States of the European Union. Regular standard surveys are carried out to poll people on various issues of international concern (e.g., globalization, sustainable development, immigration), on their cultural, political, socioeconomic characteristics and habits, and on their expectations.33 There are also opinion surveys which are confined to a specific population group so as to generate a comparative assessment of various issues, such as corruption, lobbying, property rights and business environment. One example is the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey, developed jointly by the World Bank Group and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. It conducts face-to-face interviews with managers and owners of specific firms on governance issues in business.34 Information from household perception and opinion surveys brings out the individual perspective or the “voice of the people” in the assessment of human rights. However, the method, with its focus on subjective information, could potentially fall short of producing reliable and valid indicators for monitoring human rights consistently. It may also not be adequately representative owing to coverage limitations and may yield measures that cannot support or allow cross-sectional comparisons. Nevertheless, in some instances this method can yield information that supplements other kinds of indicators in human rights assessments. It could also be used to seek the first cut information, which, depending on its usefulness, can be pursued through other datagenerating methods. 30. For instance, a question that was used in assessing violence against women was “In your opinion, does a man have a good reason to hit his wife if she disobeys him?” and the possible answers were: (1) yes; (2) no; (3) do not know (WHO multi-country study of women’s health and life events, questionnaire version 9.9 (2005)). 31. See www.gallup-international.com/. 32. See www.afrobarometer.org. 33. See http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/index_en.htm (accessed 23 May 2012). 34. See www.ebrd.com/pages/research/analysis/surveys/beeps.shtml (accessed 23 May 2012). Human Rights Indicators 65