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IDASA Opinion Survey 1998

South Africa, 1998
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Reference ID
zaf-idasa-os-1998-v1.1
Producer(s)
Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Electoral Institute of South Africa
Metadata
Documentation in PDF DDI/XML JSON
Created on
Oct 24, 2013
Last modified
Jun 20, 2020
Page views
194476
Downloads
4101
  • Study Description
  • Data Description
  • Downloads
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  • Related Publications
  • Identification
  • Version
  • Scope
  • Coverage
  • Producers and sponsors
  • Sampling
  • Data Collection
  • Data Access
  • Contacts
  • Metadata production
  • Identification

    Survey ID number

    zaf-idasa-os-1998-v1.1

    Title

    IDASA Opinion Survey 1998

    Country
    Name Country code
    South Africa zaf
    Study type

    Public Opinion Survey

    Series Information

    Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA). IDASA Opinion Survey 1998 [dataset]. Version 1.1. Cape Town: IDASA [producer], 1999. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/fg8x-je72

    Abstract

    The IDASA Opinion Survey was a series of opinion polls conducted prior to the 1999 election. They aimed to provide as complete a picture as possible of South African's views of the political, social and economic developments in the country since 1994. The survey was run by IDASA, Markinor and the SABC, along with the Electoral Institute of South Africa to increase credibility of the results and to utilise the best range of data collection and analysis expertise available.

    Several key findings of the surveys had important impacts on the electoral process: The surveys confirmed the existence of a large proportion of citizens who lacked the correct identity documents to register. The increased public debate after the release of these results was followed by an extension of the registration process as well as the creation of Temporary Registration and an intensified public advertising campaign. The results helped identify the issues that ordinary voters think are most important (ie job creation, crime-reduction, education, housing, the economy and health care). This helped re-orient the way that the media covered the campaign and focussed government and opposition attention on these key issues. The surveys also revealed the existence of quite a sophisticated electorate and who differentiate between a range of dimensions of political performance and who look to real-world events such as the economy, government performance, and how the country is doing to help them make political choices.

    Kind of Data

    Sample survey data

    Unit of Analysis

    Households and individuals

    Version

    Version Description

    v1.1: Edited, anonymised data for public distribution

    Version Date

    1999

    Version Notes

    Version 1 (the original dataset) was missing questionnaires for waves 2, 3 and 4 of this dataset. These were subsequently sourced from Markinor, the fieldwork company, and provided to DataFirst.
    Version 1.1 of this dataset (this current version) includes these questionnaires.

    Scope

    Notes

    The survey recorded South African's views of the political, social and economic developments in the country since 1994. The polls covered key issues related to the conduct of free and fair elections, voter participation, and other economic, political and partisan trends.

    Keywords
    political attitudes democracy

    Coverage

    Geographic Coverage

    The survey has national coverage.

    Geographic Unit

    The lowest level of geographic aggregation for the data is metro area.

    Universe

    The universe for the survey was all adult South Africans who would be of voting age in 1999.

    Producers and sponsors

    Primary investigators
    Name
    Institute for Democracy in South Africa
    Electoral Institute of South Africa

    Sampling

    Sampling Procedure

    The sample was drawn using a multi-stage, area stratified probability sampling methodology. The sample was stratified by province, population group and community size (metro, city, large town, small town, village and rural). The metropolitan areas were also stratified into "Formal" and "Informal" settlements, to ensure good representation. All qualifying members of a household were listed and one respondent selected randomly. Three attempts were made to interview this person, before substitution with another randomly selected household. 14% of originally selected respondents refused to be interviewed. The sample was representative of the universe from which it was selected. Results can, therefore, be projected to the universe (South Africa as a whole).

    Data Collection

    Dates of Data Collection
    Start End Cycle
    1998-09-01 1998-09-30 Survey part 1
    1998-10-05 1998-11-11 Survey part 2
    Data Collection Notes

    Fieldwork for part one of the survey was conducted from 1 to 30 September 1998. Fieldwork for part 2 of the survey was conducted from 5 October to 11 November 1998.

    Data Access

    Access authority
    Name Affiliation URL Email
    DataFirst University of Cape Town http://www.datafirst.uct.ac.za info@data1st.org
    Access conditions

    Public use files, available to all

    Citation requirements

    Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA). IDASA Opinion Survey 1998 [dataset]. Version 1.1. Cape Town: IDASA [producer], 1999. Cape Town: DataFirst [distributor], 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25828/fg8x-je72

    Contacts

    Contacts
    Name Affiliation Email URL
    DataFirst Helpdesk University of Cape Town support@data1st.org http://support.data1st.org/

    Metadata production

    Producers
    Name Affiliation Role
    DataFirst University of Cape Town Metadata Producer
    Date of Metadata Production

    2020-06-20

    Metadata version

    DDI Document version

    Version 4

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