TOPICS

• The Korea Barometer (KOBAR hereinafter) is an academically driven survey research program launched in 1994.  Since then, the program has regularly conducted nationwide random sample surveys and generated trend data on mass reactions to the cultural, economic, political, and social changes taking place within the country.  Principal topics include popular orientations to democracy and its alternatives; democratization and its consequences; civic engagements and social trust; economic crises and structural reform; the perceived quality of private and public life, and the reunification of the divided nation.  By repeating a number of core questions that were asked in its own earlier surveys and other regional barometer surveys, the KOBAR aims to chart, on a continuing basis, the attitudes, beliefs, values, and behavior patterns of the Korean people.  It also aims to compare those patterns with what has been observed in Asia, Europe, and other regions of the democratizing world.