The work of the group has covered three main areas of public opinion research. First, we have studied how opinion is distributed and can be explained at the mass level. The dependent variables are selected from a large number of varieties of public opinion and political behavior: Policy preferences, party identification, trust in government, confidence in institutions, and aspects of voting in referendums and parliamentary- and presidential elections. Explanatory models are developed from variables that include social structure, culture, economic performance, and an extensive menu of political factors. Most of the studies are comparative and cover change over time. Western Europe and the United States are included in most of the work, but some analyzes go well beyond this area. The data are from major comparative survey programmes: The International Social Survey Program, The World Values Survey, the Eurobarometers, the Nordic Referendum Surveys, and various national election surveys.