Anonymity sampling: How GAMAAN measured “non-public” opinions in Iran

In free societies, public opinion surveys using telephone and face-to-face interviews via phones/interviews are considered rigorous ways of determining what populations think. In suppressed societies under authoritarian rule, however, many opinions about sensitive questions are dangerous to express in public. Respondents will want to preserve their safety and keep these opinions, which may be widely agreed on, “non-public.” For political scientists, the challenge is to measure and reveal these opinions in such a way that respondents feel secure enough to express their genuine views. To do so, the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) developed an approach called “anonymity sampling”, entailing anonymous, large-scale, well-designed, and well-adjusted online surveys. This paper focuses on GAMAAN’s rationale, sampling strategies, and 2020-2022 survey results, which showed that 72% of adult Iranians oppose the compulsory hijab, that about half of the population does not identify as religious, and that about 80% would not opt for the Islamic Republic in a free referendum on their country’s political system. While there is an understandably large demand for data about Iranians' opinions regarding sensitive topics, GAMAAN's approach shows that conventional sampling modes may produce false information. Conventional surveying conceals opposition to the regime due to the problem of preference falsification, and cannot account for the current uprising or explain the prominence of calls for "Woman, Life, Freedom." GAMAAN's approach, in contrast, has a better chance at revealing the population's genuine beliefs.