Fragile Snapshot or Stable Relationships?

Abstract

One of the long-standing criticisms of cross-sectional survey data is that they provide only a contextually driven “snapshot” of attitudes. These attitudes are, the “snapshot critique” contends, highly fragile—subject to significant fluctuation based on events that arise domestically and globally. Although it makes sense that a major event can alter the percentage of people who respond to a given survey question in a particular way, it is less obvious that such an event jeopardizes the validity of multivariate analyses of survey data collected prior to the event. Given the prevalent use of cross-sectional survey data in quantitative political research, this question has significant implications for comparative politics. This study employs survey data from Ukraine before and after the “Orange Revolution” and from Georgia before and after the “Rose Revolution.” Its findings challenge the snapshot critique and support the idea that, even in the wake of a dramatic political event, the underlying relationships among variables measured by survey data can remain quite stable.