Public Opinion Research

Political and social dynamics often have their roots or remedies in constitutions, given constitutions’ key role in shaping relationships between people and institutions. The Center is leading two ongoing studies exploring public opinion about key aspects of constitutions and the sociopolitical systems responding to them.

Migrant Integration

Many institutional solutions to stateness problems involve empowering ethnic and other groups within the state. The normative and behavioral dilemma that bedevils these approaches stems from this question: do power-sharing institutions build unity by inculcating a shared national identity, or do they merely reinforce ethnic identities at the expense of national identity and, possibly, alienate groups that are not empowered by the institutional arrangement? Given that federalism, proportional representation, and multiculturalism have such mixed effects, is there another promising solution? Citizenship policies may be one. In particular, policies that are inclusive in that they facilitate the citizenship of minority populations may be more successful at inculcating attachment to the state. That is, minority populations will feel more strongly attached to a state when that state grants them membership and does so without onerous legal requirements.

Existing surveys on migrant integration are limited in various ways. First, the samples rarely include non-citizens and so respondents who are members of immigrant groups may not be immigrants themselves. We are thus not able to evaluate how or why immigrants themselves would be affected by conditions related to integration. Second, the survey questions about national identity and other variables related to integration are limited.

Led by Zachary Elkins, this project has developed a survey of Venezuelan migrants residing in three countries in the Americas: Colombia, the United States, and Brazil. These are three large receiving countries for Venezuelan migrants, which represent different migrant experiences, different political, socio-linguistic, and economic environments. Notably, the three countries represent different approaches to birthright nationality. Colombia is quite restrictive, Brazil is less so, and the United States is the least restrictive, with one of the most generous nationality laws in the world.

The objective of the survey is to understand migrants’ knowledge of nationality laws and any effect of these laws on integration, compared to other factors that might affect integration. The survey includes a battery of questions assessing the respondents’ attitudes towards their host versus home countries, as well as experimental items, such as a simple one that manipulates the placement of questions regarding birthright nationality law. Such questions ascertain the respondents’ knowledge and clarify the law for the respondent. Importantly, for some respondents, this clarification comes before questions about attachment, and for others it comes after, thus priming attitudes about nationality law. The survey also includes a battery of questions about other conditions that should affect integration, such as language acquisition (in the case of Brazil and the USA), the domicile of family members, and educational experiences.

Overall, the survey represents an important step in a research program on the consequences of nationality laws. The question about how to integrate immigrants more fully is not only interesting, but is also critical for those designing or reforming constitutions in multi-ethnic states.

Polarization and Constitutional Reform

Many countries globally face growing challenges to democracy amid political polarization, mounting economic and social crises, and growing disaffection. Meanwhile, waning democratic accountability and civic participation have left communities with fewer tools to spur resolution of these issues.

Deliberative consultations offer one way to recast acrimonious policy debates and produce actionable insights by enabling constituents to assess these challenges in content-based, interactive discussions that encourage new ideas and informed civic engagement. Deliberative consultations have combined civic education and policy consultation to great effect, yet few have addressed the bedrock constitutional issues shaping today’s challenges, given the large and complex scope of issues typically under consideration in constitutional reforms. And none have done so without huge outlays of time and money. Such methods have thus been deployed less frequently than might be warranted.

Led by Ashley Moran, this project has developed a scalable, online deliberative model to allow for more regular and widespread public consultation on constitutional issues. This provides a format to more routinely and comprehensively assess public views on the complex issues that are roiling democracies today—from political polarization and declining political engagement to strained public services and inequitable access to justice. Our approach uses data from Constitute—an indexed repository of the world’s constitutions—to consult communities on their constitutional priorities, the challenges they see as most pressing, and new ideas for addressing them. The consultations use these comparative data on Constitute to inform and guide participant input on a range of constitutional topics, including state institutions, elections, and rights.

We are rigorously testing this model to determine how key aspects of consultation design—the briefing materials, the deliberation, and the presence of opposing viewpoints—shape participant engagement, opinions, and polarization. We have partnered with the Laboratory of Surveys and Social Analysis at Adolfo Ibáñez University to test this model in Chile, where the recent constituent process responded to acute social protests with ambitious goals for constitutional replacement, broad public consultation, and inclusive drafting, yet produced both left- and right-leaning drafts rejected by voters. The high public and political will for reform in Chile, and the pause on current reform efforts, create a window to critically assess the process for articulating a country’s vision and to create options for a new path forward—for Chile and other countries globally facing similar challenges.

Overall, the project seeks to produce a scalable model for deliberative consultations on constitutional issues, identify the most effective strategies for engaging participants in deliberative consultations, collect informed public views on constitutional issues in Chile, and identify strategies for using such deliberative consultations to reduce polarization.

Student Training

As part of the Center's Embedded Scholars program, we also train UT students in public opinion research methods and place them in summer internships with CID Gallup in Latin America. In these internships, UT graduate and undergraduate students have conducted focus groups, fielded surveys, and designed their own surveys on topics ranging from citizenship laws and migration to foreign relations and food security. Read more about their experiences on the Embedded Scholars blog.