Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-28T05:15:11.417Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Citizen as Respondent: Sample Surveys and American Democracy Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1995

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Sidney Verba
Sidney Verba*
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Citizen participation is the main way in which the public communicates its needs and preferences to the government and induces the government to be responsive. Since participation depends on resources and resources are unequally distributed, the resulting communication is a biased representation of the public. Thus, the democratic ideal of equal consideration is violated. Sample surveys provide the closest approximation to an unbiased representation of the public because participation in a survey requires no resources and because surveys eliminate the selection bias inherent in the fact that participants in politics are self-selected. The contrast between the participatory process and the sample survey is used to highlight the nature of the bias in the former. Surveys, however, are not seen as a practical way of providing more equal representation.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, Samuel I., and Kaase, Max. 1979. Political Action: Mass Participation in Five Western Democracies. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., and Orren, Gary. 1992. “Polling Pitfalls: Sources of Error in Media Surveys.” In Media Polls and American Democracy, ed. Mann, Thomas E. and Orren, Gary R.. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E., Schlozman, Kay L., and Verba, Sidney. 1995. “Prospecting for Participants: A Rational Expectations Approach to Mobilizing Activists.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Brehm, John. 1993. The Phantom Respondents: Opinion Surveys and Political Representation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Brody, Richard. 1991. Assessing the President. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Converse, Jean. 1987. Survey Research in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. The Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Edwards, George C. III. 1980. Presidential Influence on Congress. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Gallup, George Jr., and Rae, Saul. 1940. The Pulse of Democracy. New York: Simon.Google Scholar
Geer, John C. 1991. “Critical Alignment and the Public Opinion Poll.” Journal of Politics 53:435–53.Google Scholar
Herbst, Susan. 1993. Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Keohane, Robert O., and Verba, Sidney. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivers, Douglas, and Rose, Nancy. 1985. “Passing the President's Program: Public Opinion and Presidential Power in Congress.” American Journal of Political Science 29:183–96.Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and Hansen, John Mark. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Rosenstone, Steven J.. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, and Nie, Norman H.. 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper and Row. (Reprinted by University of Chicago Press, 1987.)Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Nie, Norman H., and Kim, Jae-on. 1979. Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978. (Reprinted by University of Chicago Press, 1987.)Google Scholar
Zaller, John. 1993. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinions. Cambridge and New York: the University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.