Cross-National Survey Experiments: A Practical Guide Joshua D. Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon & Weifang Xu
One of the major methodological developments in experimental research in political science in the past decade has been the rise of cross-national survey experiments, in which researchers field experiments on samples from multiple countries. However, despite their newfound popularity, there is little sense of best practices, and the motivation for conducting cross-national experimental work is often unclear. We outline four types of cross-national experimental designs, each of which reflects a distinctive motivation; the most fruitful cross-national surveys, we suggest, are those whose designs most clearly follow from their theories and questions of interest. We also review a number of challenges that cross-national survey research often faces, suggesting a number of principles for experimentalists to keep in mind.