Letter from Two WAPOR Presidents (2024/2025)

This post is also available in: 简体中文 (Chinese (Simplified)) 繁體中文 (Chinese (Traditional))

Note: This document may be translated from English into many different languages. In case of any discrepancy or inconsistency between the English version and any other translation, the English version shall always prevail.

Video on “WAPOR in Succession”: https://youtu.be/qy3-G5GkIJY?si=Ogzg-tyDlQihd2E0

Exactly two years ago, I wrote a Joint Presidents’ Letter with Timothy Johnson, then outgoing President. I am now writing my second and last Joint Presidents’ Letter with Christian Haerpfer, our incoming President.

Writing a Joint Letter was unprecedented two years ago, it is now a repeated practice. Likewise, I issued my first President’s Video six months ago, it has now become a regular feature.

When I started my presidency, I posted one important question to all members as well as myself: With seventy-five years of solid history behind us, do we need to change? After 100 days of consultation and consolidation, I concluded: we must treasure dearly the tradition our predecessors have worked so hard to cultivate, but we must also break new grounds to dance with time. This is social evolution. I hope I have made some achievements in my presidency along this line.

Another big question I posted to members and myself two years ago was: What should be the optimal size of WAPOR? From the figures laid before me then, our membership size usually fluctuated between 300 to 500. Some said we should enjoy being small and cozy, others said we are the world’s top professional organization in opinion research so we should aim at becoming a bigger and stronger association. I asked some colleagues, “What about going for a thousand?” I forgot the exact answers, but words like “impossible”, “unmanageable” and “overambitious” kept floating in my mind.

“Numbers are not everything, we need to crunch them rightly and wisely,” this I said in my opening remarks in our 2024 Seoul Annual Conference. We were approaching 900 then. To be fair, this number also included regional chapter members, organizational members, and “Friends of WAPOR” which are recent creations. However, they all reflect our new concept of a “WAPOR Community” – that we can continue to nourish cozy relationships within different groups of leaders and members, while we at the same time reach out to the world to spread our influence across different professional circles and domains. This is unity in diversity.

At this juncture, let me proudly announce that our WAPOR Community has recently surpassed the magic number of 1,000 one week before the end of 2024! Thanks to so many colleagues who have helped to promote our friendship and membership programs over the past few months, we have finally made it! We now need to maintain it and add life to it.

One important step in moving forward is to pause periodically to think carefully “why we are doing what we are doing” – this is another note I tried to strike in Seoul. As a matter of fact, the entire theme of our 2024 Annual Conference – “The Soul of Public Opinion Research: Liberty, Quality, and Humanity” – was exactly meant to do this. I am so glad to see a record number of presentations and turnouts in Seoul, and we can now continue our journey towards our 80^th anniversary and then centenary, with new strengths, new insights, and with a new sense of togetherness. Our Honorary Historian, Tom Smith, is leading a team of us to write a history book about WAPOR. I look forward to reading it.

Equally important to the writing of history is the proper organization and archiving of our records and documents, so that our future leaders, members and researchers can learn readily from the experience of our forerunners, our contemporaries and any generation of leaders and members to come.

Along this line of thought, and concurring with the succession of leadership, which has not come by as smoothly as expected, the Council at its last meeting of the year held on December 17 has agreed to the following appointments proposed by the President:

• Robert Chung will be appointed as Chair of the Task Force on Constitutional Review from January 1 to June 30, 2025
• Gary Langer will be appointed as Chair of the Special Committee on WAPOR Transparency from January 1 to December 31, 2025
• Tom Smith will be re-appointed as Honorary Historian up to June 30, 2025.

To facilitate a smooth transition of leadership after the recent crisis, the following arrangements will be made:

• Timothy Johnson will be appointed as Honorary Policy Advisor from January 1 to June 30, 2025
• Tim will re-join the Finance and Conference Committees as a regular (voting) member up to December 31, 2025
• Tim will join the Standards Committee as a regular (voting) member up to December 31, 2025 
• Tim will also become an advisor of the Membership Committee up to June 30, 2025
• Robert will become an advisor of the Conference, Liaison and Education Committees up to June 30, 2025.

Other appointments supported by the Council on December 17 include:

• Colin Irwin will be appointed as Chair of the Special Committee to Study the Feasibility of Running Regular Global Reports on Important Topics (GRIT) Under the Auspices of WAPOR from January 1 to December 31, 2025
• Michael Traugott will be re-appointed as Chair of the Special Committee on the Use of Opinion Polls in Candidate Selection up to June 30, 2025.

With all these measures set, I think we have successfully turned all challenges into opportunities, within our existing constitutional framework. Perhaps it is time to say goodbye, even though I shall still be staying in the Council as Past President.

I know our new President Christian will be thanking all colleagues later in this joint letter, so let me just draw your attention to the video “WAPOR in Succession” mentioned at the beginning of this Letter, whereby I have invited all outgoing and incoming Council colleagues to say a few words to the membership. After watching the video, you will be able to see that WAPOR is not just a group of individuals. We are a team, a community, a family!

I feel so blessed to have become the head of this family for the past two years. I humbly thank all of you for giving me this once in a lifetime experience, which I will never forget! Goodbye!

It represents my distinct honour and outstanding pleasure to commence my term as the new President of WAPOR on the 1st of January 2025, following the elections in autumn 2024.

The World Association for Public Opinion Research constitutes since more than 75 years the leading global association of public opinion research and encompasses already 1000 members and friends in 112 countries and societies across the globe.

My whole career was linked with public opinion research and based on comparative survey research in both academia and commerce in a longitudinal and cross-national perspective.

In my capacity as Director of the Institute for Conflict Research (Vienna), I was the Principal Investigator of the ‘Xenophobia Barometer in Austria’ and of the ‘Trade Union Barometer in Austria’.

In my capacity as Director of the Paul-Lazarsfeld – Society for Social Research (Vienna) I had the opportunity to direct the ‘New Democracies Barometer – NDB’ in post-Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe’, and the chance to direct the ’Eurasia Barometer’ in many former countries of the Soviet Union. I planned and conducted the first pre-election survey in Bulgaria 2 months after the fall of the Communist Regime in Sofia.

In my capacity as Director of the Centre for Strategic Development at the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna), I conducted pre- and post-election polls and exit polls in Austria, Bulgaria and Ukraine in the 90s. In that period I designed and coordinated a special module on ‘Social Capital’ for the ‘Eurobarometer’ Survey of the European Commission in all member states of the European Union.

In my capacity as Director of the European Centre for Survey Research (ECSR) and as Established First Chair in Politics at the University of Aberdeen (UK), I directed the ‘Arabtrans Survey’ in a number of countries of the Arab World and the Middle East and an election study in Moldova. I was elected as President of the World Values Survey Association in 2013 and coordinated wave 6 of the WVS from my position at the University of Aberdeen.

In my current capacity as Director of the Institute for Comparative Survey Research and Professor of Political Science at the University of Vienna I coordinated as President of the World Values Survey wave 7 of WVS and I am coordinating now the new and ongoing wave 8 of the World Values Survey.

I am currently Principal Investigator of public opinion research in 24 member states of the European Union with the topic of ‘Trust in European Democracies-TRUEDEM’, supported by the HORIZON Research Programme of the European Union.

The first and foremost task of 2025 will be to make the 78th WAPOR Annual Conference in the USA in May 2025 a success. Please consider your own participation and invite your colleagues and friends to submit a paper abstract for that important event until 15th January 2025. This international WAPOR Conference will constitute an excellent opportunity to present the results of your own public opinion research and to meet the best public opinion researchers of the world. There will be also a fascinating opportunity to meet colleagues from AAPOR (American Association of Public Opinion Research) at the same time in the same location, namely St. Louis.

An important task for WAPOR in 2025 will be to be a voice for global public opinion research and to defend the reputation of commercial as well as academic survey research. There is an increasing number of political interventions and accusations against public opinion research, for example recently in the USA and Serbia, and we have to deliver strong responses to those unfair and unjust attacks on the integrity and reputation of public opinion research.

An important task for WAPOR in 2025 will be to support and strengthen the excellent regional chapters of WAPOR in Asia, Western Asia and the MENA Region, the Sub-Saharan Region, and Latin America.

The main principles of our work within WAPOR are -and will be also in 2025- excellent quality standards of public opinion research, impeccable ethical principles, moral integrity of research procedures, the striving for a gender balance in public opinion research, and the facilitation of open access to most of our excellent public opinion research results in data archives.

I would like to thank Professor Robert Chung for his outstanding service as President of WAPOR in 2023 and 2024. Under his Presidency, WAPOR achieved the most successful Annual Conference of its history in Seoul in South Korea this year and the membership of WAPOR reached now the magical number of 1000 members and friends from 112 countries and societies worldwide. President Chung was also leading a successful revision of the Constitution of WAPOR.

My special thanks go to Professor Timothy Johnson for his ‘Sterling’ service as Past President in 2023 and 2024. Tim has kindly agreed to support the leadership of WAPOR also in 2025 with his wisdom and advice in order to facilitate the transition process in challenging times for our organisation.

We also express our sincere gratitude to David Jodice for his outstanding and significant contributions as Vice-President of WAPOR in 2023 and 2024.

My special thanks for her hard and tireless work goes to the Executive Director of WAPOR, to Dr Kseniya Kizilova. She is the heart and the soul of the WAPOR Office together with the IT Assistant Isabela Rocha and she took care of the amazing progress of the organisation of WAPOR in Conferences, Webinars and countless offline and online meetings of the Executive Council, the General Council, the big number of committees and the Regional Chapters of WAPOR.

My special thanks go also to the distinguished Chairs, Vice-Chairs and Members of the many committees of WAPOR for their excellent and outstanding work in keeping this global organization up and running and in ‘ship-shape’.

I am very much looking forward meeting many of you -hopefully- in May at the WAPOR 2025 78th Annual Conference in St. Louis in the USA. May I use this occasion to wish you a ‘Very Happy New Year’, if you celebrate the calendar turn from 2024 to 2025, as well as success, happiness and health in the New Year!

Sincerely