Accessing the ‘Democracy Amid Crises’ Data Sets Is Restricted
Background Information
The 2020 Annenberg Institutions of Democracy (AIOD) Panel Dataset, the source for the analyses in the 2023 book “Democracy Amid Crises,” is now available to scholars to analyze. The data consists of 8 waves of panel data tracking the opinions of residents of four key battleground states—Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—during the 2020 election and its aftermath (April 2020–February 2021). The panelists in each state are a representative sample of that state; samples were drawn via address-based sampling conducted by SSRS. Panelists completed the surveys online, with the exception of a small number of panelists who preferred to take them over the telephone.
We had 11,688 respondents complete wave 1 of our study. Respondents were invited to take future waves, though not every respondent takes every wave; please see the codebook for more details.
The interviews take place between April 2020 and February 2021. The study focuses on the events of that period, focusing on the 2020 election campaign. These include respondents’ media consumption, their perceptions of, and experiences during, the COVID-19 pandemic, their view of the economy, their views on the debate over race and policing sparked by the death of George Floyd, and their perceptions of the legitimacy of the 2020 election (and much more, as well).
The data that are available to researchers are the data that underlies the analysis in “Democracy Amid Crises,” published in 2023 by Oxford University Press. More detail on the design of the study are available in the book, especially in the online appendix to the book.
To access the 2020 AIOD data set, you must complete a data sharing agreement, available here. Please read it carefully, complete the required information, and have it signed by the appropriate representative of your university. It should then be submitted to the managing director of survey research at the address indicated, who will then provide you with access to the data, after clearing Penn’s Office of Research Services.
This data contains no geographic identifiers below the state level. If you wish to obtain the data that contains county-level identifiers, you are required to have your university’s IRB approve your use of the data. Your university’s IRB must review your data safeguarding plan to prevent the accidental disclosure of respondents’ identities. Said IRB review must be either expedited or full review; it may not be deemed exempt from review. Please contact the managing director of survey research if you are interested in obtaining this version of the data. Please note that the same process applies to obtaining the multiply imputed dataset used to produce “Democracy Amid Crises.”
Those wishing to obtain the data sets must complete the Data Confidentiality Agreement and return it via email to Ken Winneg, Ph.D., Managing Director of Survey Research at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (ken.winneg@appc.upenn.edu).
We strongly encourage you to read the entire agreement as detailed at the link below:
Note: Each researcher should sign as the data recipient. An authorized representative of your university must also sign on the university’s behalf. Except in extremely rare circumstances, individual faculty members are not authorized to sign on behalf of their university. Typically, the authorized person is someone in your university’s legal, financial, or business services departments.
If you are interested in seeing the questions that were asked, you can download the questionnaires here.