The study of comparative public opinion has been hampered by data
that is sparse, that is, unavailable for many countries and years;
incomparable, i.e., ostensibly addressing the same issue but generated
by different survey items; or, most often, both. DCPO
is an
R package for estimating latent public opinion from cross-national
survey data to maximize the information gleaned from available sources,
overcome issues of missing and incomparable data, and allow
comparativists to examine the dynamics of public opinion across
countries.
For a detailed description, see the working paper here.