The rise of cross-national survey data harmonization in the social sciences: emergence of an interdisciplinary methodological field

Cross-national survey data harmonization combines surveys conducted in multiple countries and across many time periods into a single, coherent dataset. Methodologically, ex post survey data harmonization is especially complex because it combines projects that were not specifically designed to be comparable. We examine the institutional and intellectual history of nine large scale ex post survey data harmonization (SDH) projects in the social sciences from the 1980s to the 2010s. An interdisciplinary methodological field of SDH slowly emerges, facilitated in part by a partnership between academia and government and from the coordinated contributions of social scientists, survey methodologists and computer scientists. While there has been a learning process, it is in terms of accumulated practicalities, and not with the coordination or institutional apparatus one would expect from a 30 year effort.