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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
The purpose of this paper is to describe how public opinion research can aid political parties in adopting sound policies and wise courses of action. In view of the crisis brought to a climax by events in Korea, the analysis is confined to how current public opinion research can be used immediately and to how public opinion methodology can be adapted now for more extensive practical application. In addition, since public opinion research throws into focus the critical problems facing political parties, certain of these problems are noted to show the limitations of public opinion research as it can now be used.
Before the 1948 polling difficulties, research in the form of questionnaires showed that politicians had a high regard for public opinion polls. Although apparently no comparable research has been conducted since then on their attitude toward polls, statements of individual politicians have shown that polls have dropped sharply in prestige. At present, public opinion research techniques are perhaps undervalued, as they were once overvalued.
There is a primary misconception about polls which has been fostered in part by the pollsters themselves. Polls are not accurate to a percentage point or within an artificial “margin of error” under certain circumstances.
1 Leiserson, Avery, “Opinion Research and the Political Process: Farm Policy an Example”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 13, p. 33 (Spring, 1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Truman, David B., “Public Opinion Research as a Tool of Public Administration”, Public Administration Review, Vol. 5, pp. 62–72 (Winter, 1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 The question and results are reported in Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 13, p. 556 (Fall, 1949)Google Scholar.
3 As reported by Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Rosenberg, Morris, “The Contribution of the Regional Poll to Political Understanding”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 13, pp. 584–585 (Winter, 1949–1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 Morse, Andrew J., “The Effect of Popular Opinion on Campaign Slogans—an Illustration”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 13, pp. 507–510 (Fall, 1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 McKean, Dayton David, Party and Pressure Politics (Boston, 1949), p. 178 Google Scholar.
6 Bower, Robert, “Public Opinion Polls and the Politician”, Annals, Vol. 259, p. 109 (September, 1948)Google Scholar.
7 Dodd, Stuart C., “The Washington Public Opinion Laboratory”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 12, p. 118 (Spring, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 As discussed in Lazarsfeld and Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 583.
9 Ibid., pp. 583–584.
10 Bone, Hugh A., American Politics and the Party System (New York, 1949), p. 89 Google Scholar.
11 Public Opinion and Propaganda (New York, 1950), pp. 507–514 Google Scholar.
12 For a convenient summary, see Schattschneider, E. E., The Struggle for Party Government (College Park, 1948)Google Scholar. See also Party Government (New York, 1942)Google Scholar.
13 Arthur N. Holcombe, American Political Science Review, Vol. 33, p. 824 (August, 1949). Holcombe's statement is in a review of Lindsay Rogers' The Pollsters, in which Rogers holds that polls are a threat to representative government and the democratic process. In this article, no attempt has been made to answer Rogers' charges since they are made emotionally rather than scientifically; in another sense, this article is a reply to Rogers' theories.
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