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Democracy as Perceived by Public Opinion Analysts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Leon Dion
Leon Dion*
Affiliation:
Université Laval
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Extract

The political ideas of public opinion analysts–pollsters as well as theoreticians–have often been submitted to rather harsh criticisms from political philosophers and scientists. On occasion, however, the analysts have reciprocated by accusing the latter of being poorly acquainted not only with the techniques and purpose of polling but also with the basic political assumptions that underlie their work. Public opinion analysts in the United States present themselves as champions of democracy; as a consequence, it is only natural that they should above all resent criticisms asserting that they hold naïve, false, or even subversive notions concerning democracy.

In the present article, I intend to explore the ideological conceptions of American public opinion analysts concerning the position and function of polling in a democracy. Reference to their critics will be made only when one or another public opinion analyst is known to have explicitly answered a specific point. Since many contemporary analysts acknowledge their debt to Bryce's The American Commonwealth, I shall start by presenting the pertinent views of the British author concerning public opinion; second, I shall summarize the views which present polling as a new technique of democratic government; third, I shall consider what public opinion analysts have to say about the impact of polling on the democratic process as such. Finally, I shall conclude by indicating how public opinion analysts view their research in relation to political theory in general.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , November 1962 , pp. 571 - 584
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1962

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Footnotes

*

A paper submitted at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association at McMaster University, Hamilton, June 10, 1962. I am indebted to the Canada Council for a grant that facilitated my research.

References

1 For a similar treatment of Lowell, see Crick, Bernard, The American Science of Politics: Its Origins and Conditions (London, 1959), 102–5.Google Scholar At any rate, in spite of his insistence on quantitative methods in political science, Lowell did not connect this method to research on voting behaviour. The first to do so was probably Rice, Stuart A., Quantitative Methods in Politics (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; for appraisal, see Rossi, Peter H. “Four Landmarks in Voting Research,” in Burdick, E. and Brodbeck, A. J., eds., American Voting Behavior (Glencoe, Ill., 1959), 6–9.Google Scholar

2 Bryce expressed most of his ideas about public opinion in the twelve chapters he devoted to the subject in The American Commonwealth (1888). In Modern Democracies, published in 1921 just one year before his death, Bryce made only passing references to the subject. For an excellent analysis and criticism of Bryce's conception of public opinion, see Wilson, James G., “James Bryce on Public Opinion: 50 Years Later,” Public Opinion Quarterly, III, no. 3, 1939.Google Scholar See also Childs, Harwood L., An Introduction to Publie Opinion (New York, 1940), 49 ff.Google Scholar; and Graves, W. Brook, “American Public Opinion as Bryce Described It and As It Is To-day,” in Brooks, Robert C., ed., Bryce's American Commonwealth (New York, 1939), chap. iv.Google Scholar

3 American Commonwealth, III, chap. 77, 144.Google Scholar

4 Some American progressives contrasted what they considered to be a “class (business) system of representative government” as implemented by the mechanism of elections with a “public opinion system of government” as produced by the direct primary, the initiative, referendum and recall. See Croly, Herbert, Progressive Democracy (New York, 1914), 220–40.Google Scholar

5 Before the advent of opinion-sampling polls many American political theorists and practicians held a similar view that elected government officials should stand by public opinion even against their own best judgment in matters of practical day-to-day policies. However, they also usually insisted on definite evidence as to what that opinion was before yielding to the people's choice. Thus, for example, in his veto message to Congress on the Immigration bill in 1915, President Wilson said: “If the people of this country have made up their minds to limit the number of immigrants by arbitrary tests and so reverse the policy of all the generations of Americans that have gone before them it is their right to do so. I am their servant and have no license to stand in their way. But I do not believe that they have … Does this bill rest on the conscious and universal assent and desire of the American people? I doubt it. It is because I doubt it that I make bold to dissent from it. I am willing to abide by the verdict, but not until it is rendered.” Congressional Record, Jan. 28, 1915, 63rd Congress, 3rd session, 2482. As a way of ascertaining the verdict of public opinion, President Wilson referred only to party platforms … at the next elections (i.e., well after his veto would have been enforced). It is clear that the President could not have phrased his opposing stand the way he did if a national opinion poll had then been taken and shown a majority of the population as favouring the bill. He might have abided by his decision of vetoing the bill but he would have found it impossible to bow before public opinion the way he aid. Of course, he might also have declared the polls findings non-representative of “true” public opinion (Lowell's version) which is very often done by politicians in such circumstances.

6 In effect, Bryce sometimes tended to overlook the fact that American political institutions and mechanisms are affected with a “qualitative” as well as with a “quantitative” sign. He notably underestimated the dynamic role of party leaders, the impact of party platforms, and so on. He almost ignored the fact that one of the central functions of the “check and balance” system was the protection of minorities and regional interests. As a result of his blind devotion to the rule of the majority he was unable to perceive some of the inner and more subtle aspects of the functioning of the American political system, and the low esteem in which he held American politicians as well as lawyers and businessmen and the upper classes generally no doubt helped strengthen his conviction of the sanctity of majority views and increase his confidence in the basic virtues and sound judgment of the “plain people.” As will appear in the following pages, American public opinion analysts nave taken over from Bryce many of their views of democracy.

7 There is also a preliminary question which can be asked about the technique of sampling polls, and that is, whether they really deal with what they are supposed to measure, i.e., public opinion. Gallup and other pollsters as well as some theoreticians of public opinion have uncritically assumed that they did. Thus, for example, William A. Lydgate enthusiastically proclaimed: “Never before in human history have so many facts been gathered about the formation, structure and behavior of public opinion in the United States. No longer does the American mass mind represent a trackless and unchartered sea, to be glimpsed only by guesswork, inference, and intuition, by some flash of insight of a Bryce, a Dana, a Greely, or a Lippmann.” What America Thinks (New York, 1944), 150.Google Scholar To what extent can opinion polls, as they are usually conducted, be assumed to express the “formation, structure and behavior” of public opinion? Whatever the answer sampling polls of “opinions” and “attitudes” represent the only technique yet devised which can make a reasonable pretence of implementing Bryce's requirement of a “permanent plebiscite.” I have dealt with these ana connected questions in my essay: “Régimes d'opinions publiques et systèmes idéologiques,” Ecrits du Canada Français, XII, 1962.Google Scholar

8 After the Presidential election of 1948, the results of which had contradicted all polling forecasts, a distinguished group convened at the University of Iowa for a conference on attitude and opinion research. The published reports of the conference indicate a great modesty of pretensions as well as a high regard for political philosophy on the part of all participants, among whom stood Gallup, Roper, Crossley, and other pollsters. See Meier, Norman C. and Saunders, Harold W., eds., The Polls and Public Opinion (New York, 1949).Google Scholar

9 Gallup, George and Rae, Saul Forbes, The Pulse of Democracy: The Public Opinion Poll and How it Works (New York, 1940), 32.Google Scholar Gallup, , “The Place of Public Opinion Polls in a Democracy,” paper prepared for the American Political Science Association, 12 29, 1939 Google Scholar, and published by the APSA as a pamphlet. According to Gallup, Montaigne had written: “Public Opinion is a powerful, bold and unmeasurable party.” Chapin, as quoted by Bailey, Thomas, The Man in the Street: The Impact of American Public Opinion on Foreign Policy (New York, 1948), 217, n. 14.Google Scholar Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy: A Study in American Politics (New York, 1939), 10,393, 394.Google Scholar

10 Gallup, and Rae, , Pulse of Democracy, 9, 179, 142–4.Google Scholar Gosnell, , “The Polls and Other Mechanisms of Democracy,” Public Opinion Quarterly, IV, no. 2, 01, 1940, 224–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Cherington, “Opinion Polls as the Voice of Democracy,” ibid., 236–8.

11 Gallup, , “Public Opinion in a Democracy,” Stafford Little Lectures, Princeton University (Princeton, 1939), 6.Google Scholar Gallup, and Rae, , Pube of Democracy, 52.Google Scholar Bailey, , The Man in the Street, 100.Google Scholar Field, and Connelly, , “Testing Polls in Official Election Booths,” Public Opinion Quarterly, VI, no. 4, 1940, 610.Google Scholar Albig, , Modern Public Opinion (New York, 1956), 209.Google Scholar See also Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 412–13.Google Scholar

12 Gallup, and Rae, , The Pulse of Democracy, 15, 289 Google Scholar; Field, and Lazarsfeld, , The People Look at Radio (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1946), 76.Google Scholar

13 Gallup quotes Roosevelt, T. in A Guide to Public Opinion Polls (Princeton, 1944)Google Scholar, Poole, V., “Public Opinion and “Value Judgments',” Public Opinion Quarterly, III, no. 3, 1939, 374.Google Scholar Cherington, “Opinion Polls as the Voice of Democracy,” ibid., IV, no. 2, 1940, 238. Gallup, , “The Future Trends of Opinion Sampling” in Meier, and Saunders, , eds., Polls and Public Opinion, 219.Google Scholar

For other similar views, see Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 415 Google Scholar; Bruner, Jerome S., Mandate from the People (New York, 1944)Google Scholar; Cantril, Hadley, “The Use of Trends” in Cantril, et al., Gauging Public Opinion (Princeton, 1944), 288 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Childs, Harwood L., An Introduction to Public Opinion (New York, 1940), 22–34 Google Scholar; Fenton, John F., In Your Opinion (New York, 1960), viii–ix, 5.Google Scholar The citation expressing criticism is from Bernays, , “Attitude Polls-Servants or Masters,” Public Opinion Quarterly, IX, no. 2, 1945, 264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 McGuire, , “The U.S. Constitution and Ten Shekels of Silver,” Public Opinion Quarterly, IV, no. 2, 1940, 233.Google Scholar Ernst, and Loth, , The People Know Best: The Ballots vs the Polls (Washington, 1949), 10.Google Scholar Gallup in Foreword to Fenton, In Your Opinion, viii. Furthermore, one infers from the context of Gallup's earlier writings that when he referred to polling as “a big town meeting” and the rest he meant it in an analogous and not in a realistic sense.

15 That polling is against “the tradition set by the Fathers” has been asserted, by McGuire, in “The U.S. Constitution and Ten Shekels of Silver,” 235 Google Scholar; that American democracy has been “a relative failure” is the opinion of Brown, E. T., The Sovereign People: Analysis of an Illusion (Melbourne, 1954), vii.Google Scholar For a good presentation of the defects and shortcomings of the American system of government from a democratic point of view, see Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 348 ff.Google Scholar; McKean, Dayton David, Party and Pressure Politics (Boston, 1949), chap. VII.Google Scholar

16 Chafee, Zechariah Jr., Government and Communications (Chicago, 1947), II, 783 ff.Google Scholar; Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 354.Google Scholar Walter Lippmann is one of many authors who have denied that public opinion has anything really to do with the governing of men. His remark: “the public will arrive in the middle of the third act and will leave before the last curtain … The work of the world goes on continually without conscious direction from public opinion” is being repeatedly quoted even now by critics of polling although Lippmann wrote it before the appearance of opinion-sampling polls. See his The Phantom Public (New York, 1925), 65.Google Scholar In his more recent book, The Public Philosophy, Lippmann presents a much more balanced appreciation of the functions of public opinion in modern society.

17 Cartwright, Darwin, “Public Opinion and Democratic Leadership,” Journal of Social Issues, II, no. 2, 1946, 24 Google Scholar; Allport, Harry, “A Critical Introduction” to a symposium on “Congressional Use of Polls,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XVIII, no. 2, 1954, 121–3Google Scholar; and other earlier articles published in the same review by Martin Kriesberg (1945), Lewis E. Gleek (1940) and George F. Lewis, Jr. (1940). Also Bailey, Stephen K., Congress Makes a Law (New York, 1949)Google Scholar, and idem and Samuel, Howard, Congress at Work (New York, 1952).Google Scholar Williams, , “Public Opinion in a World of Power Politics,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XI, no. 3, 1947, 361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar John C. Ranney, “Do Polls Serve Democracy?” ibid., X, no. 3, 1946, 355. Bernays, , “Attitude Polls,” 266.Google Scholar Roper, Elmo, You and Your Leaders: Their Actions and your Reactions (New York, 1957), 276.Google Scholar

18 See Merton, Robert K., Social Theory and Social Structure (rev. ed., Glencoe, Ill., 1955), 355.Google Scholar

19 Gallup, , “The Future Trends of Opinion Sampling,” 218.Google Scholar

20 Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 11.Google Scholar Berelson, , “Democratic Theory and Public Opinion,” Public Opinion Quarterly, XV, no. 3, 1952, 313–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 For critical views, see, among others, Cartwright, , “Public Opinion Polls and Democratic Leadership,” 23–32 Google Scholar; Smith, , Public Opinion in a Democracy, 410 ffGoogle Scholar; Lynd, Robert S., “Democracy in Reverse,” Public Opinion Quarterly, IV, no. 2, 1940, 218–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGuire, , “The U.S. Constitution and Ten Shekels of Silver,” 232–5Google Scholar; Ranney, , “Do Polls Serve Democracy?” 349–61Google Scholar; White, Howard B., “The Processed Voter and the New Political Science,” Social Research, XXVIII, no. 2, 1961, 127–51Google Scholar, and, of course, Rogers, The Pollsters.

22 Gallup, and Rae, , The Pube of Democracy, 282.Google Scholar

23 Lazarsfeld in a comment at the last session of the Iowa Conference; in Meier, and Saunders, , eds., The Polls and Public Opinion, 322–3.Google Scholar

24 Dodd, discussing a paper by Samuel A. Stouffer on the subject of “Basic Social Science Research,” ibid., 19–20; Bachelder, ibid., 172.

25 White, , “The Processed Voter and the New Political Science,” 127–51.Google Scholar On the same subject see an earlier study by Lee, Alfred McLung; “Sociological Theory in Public Opinion and Attitude Studies,” American Sociological Review, XII, no. 3, 1947, 312–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 “La méthode des sondages,” in Berger, G. et al., L'Opinion publique (Paris, 1957), 255.Google Scholar

27 Alfred Sauvy, ibid., 6.