American Academy of Political and Social Science

Public Opinion, Polling, and Political Behavior

Author(s): Michael Margolis
Source: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 472, Polling and
the Democratic Consensus (Mar., 1984), pp. 61-71
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political
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ANNALS, AAPSS, 472, March 1984

Public Opinion, Polling, and

Political Behavior

By MICHAELMARGOLIS

ABSTRACT:The advent of scientific public opinion polling gave demo-

cratic governance a new dimension. For the first time representativescould
discern people's opinions on virtually any public issue. Despite this ability,
three important questions remain. Are people adequately informed to
consider the complex problems of modern government?Will they give their
true opinions to a pollster? And even if these two conditions are satisfied,
do representatives have to be bound by popular opinion? This article
argues that modern public opinion analysts who use polling data tend to
ignore these questions and instead focus on patterns of attitudes among
various groups in the population. Before scientific polling became com-
mon, those who studied public opinion directed their efforts to the connec-
tion between behavioral manifestations of public opinion and the devel-
opment of public policy. They worried more about the role of public
opinion in the formulation of public policy. It turns out that much of the
public opinion literature preceding scientific polling remains relevant, and
we ignore it at our peril.

Michael Margolis (Ph.D., Michigan) is associate professor of political science at the

University of Pittsburgh. He is author of Viable Democracy (1979) and coauthor of Political
Stratification and Democracy (1972), and he has contributed numerous articles to proJes-
sional journals, books, and newspapers. He has been a visiting lecturer in politics at the
universities of Strathclyde, 1965-67, and Glasgow, 1973-74.

NOTE: The author wishes to thank Michael Johnston, Richard Niemi, Bert Rockman, Lee Wein-
berg, and Robert Weissberg for comments on an early draft of this article.

61
62
HROUGHOUT recorded history,
governmentshave been concerned
with public opinion. Well before the
advent of scientific polling, rulers had
devised ways of finding out what the
people thought. In biblical times the
pharaohs and kings had prophets and
counselors to inform them of both vox
Dei and vox populi. In ancient Lydia,
King Croesus reputedly sent Aesop
among the people as his emissary,' and
in ancient Athens, according to Pericles,
frank public discussion always preceded
implementation of public policy.2 Al-
though not so democratic in theory or
practice, the rulers of ancient Rome
nonetheless tried to satisfy the people's
demands-perhaps even to manipulate
those demands-by providing panem et
circenses.3
All governments-ancient or mod-
ern, dictatorial or democratic-have
found it prudent to satisfy, or at least to
pacify, the masses. David Hume put it
thus:
As force is always on the side of the gov-
erned, the governorshave nothing to sup- given
port them but opinion. It is, therefore, on
opinion only that government is founded;
andthis maximextendsto the mostdespotic
andmost militarygovernments,as wellas to
the most free and popular.4
1. Encyclopedia Americana,international
s.v. "Aesop";EncyclopediaBritannica-Micrope- all issues so that they might delegate
dia, 15th ed., s.v. "Aesop." Aesop's actual con-
nection to Croesus is in fact doubtful, but its asser-
tion by Plutarch and its persistence over time
illustrates our point.
2. Pericles, "Funeral Oration," in Commu-
nism, Fascism, and Democracy, 2nd ed., ed. Carl
Cohen (New York: Random House, 1972), p. 540.
3. Charles W. Smith, Public Opinion in a
Democracy (New York:
Prentice-Hall, 1939), pp.
2-4.
4. David Hume, David Hume's Political
Essays (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), p. 24.
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
Democratic governments, however,
add the requirement that not only must
governments retain the support of mass
opinion, but ultimately mass public
opinion must determine basic public
policy. Democracy, after all, is rule by
the demos, the common people. Yet it is
difficult to realize such rule, once the
polity exceeds the size of the Greek city-
state, wherein the citizenry can debate
and resolve public issues face to face.
Since direct democracy on a mass basis
is impossible, the normal arrangement,
of course, is to institute representative
democracy. The people's elected repre-
sentatives meet face to face in lieu of the
people themselves, and in the end, the
representatives' acts are supposed to
reflect the best opinions and interests of
the people.
How people control their representa-
tives may vary in theory from periodic
authorizations of plenipotentiary pow-
ers over all pertinent decisions to delega-
tion of specifically enumerated powers
over discrete decisions. But in practice,
the complexity and multiplicity of
decisions to be made, elected represen-
tatives normally are granted full power
to act in the people's stead for a desig-
nated term. In point of fact, it would be
irrational, if not virtually impossible,
for ordinary citizens to invest the enor-
ed., mous amount of time required to study
only specific powers for political deci-
sion.5
How then are the representatives to
discern the best opinions or interests of
the people? Until well into the twentieth
century most elected representativeshad
little more information-beyond the fact
5. Compare Walter Lippmann, The Phan-
tom Public (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925),
pp. 20-21.
PUBLIC OPINION, POLLING, POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
of their election-about the people's
wishes than did the ancient tyrants.
Representatives could listen to self-de-
clared opinion leaders or prophets; they
could take note of demonstrations of
praise or blame; or they could observe
public fashions, followings, or boycotts.
By the late nineteenth century they
could also be informed by the results of
initiatives and referenda, a ratherelabo-
rate and expensive means to explore
matters that were of necessity rather
limited in scope.6
The advent of scientific public opin-
ion polling changed all this. With the
appropriate samples and questions it
was possible for the first time to discern
people's opinions on virtually any pub-
lic issue at relatively little expense in a
very short period of time.7 Public opin-
ion polling provided a means of linking
what the people said they wanted directly
to public policy decisions.
POLLS AND
PUBLIC POLICY
The new found ability to link mass
opinion to public policy decisions none-
theless raised three serious questions.
First, were the masses equipped to con-
sider complex problems, however care-
fully posed by public opinion pollsters?
Second, even if the masses were able to
understand the problems, would they be
willing to give their true opinions, those
6. James Bryce, The American Common-
wealth (New York: Macmillan 1891), 2:346; A.
Lawrence Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular
Government, new ed. (New York: Longmans,
Green, 1926), pp. 54-61, 210-11. For a discussion
of polling in the United States prior to 1900, see
Richard Jensen, "Democracy by the Numbers,"
Public Opinion 3:53-59 (Feb./Mar. 1980).
7. George Gallup, Public Opinion in a
Democracy, Stafford Little Lectures (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1939), pp. 14-15.
63
which would be predictive of subse-
quent political behavior? Finally, even if
the first two conditions were satisfied,
would representatives have the obliga-
tion to enact policies in accordance with
popular opinions?
If political scientists knew one thing
for certain, it was that citizens generally
neither knew nor cared very much about
most governmental institutions, politi-
cal leaders, current issues, or public pol-
icies. For most people the day-to-day
concerns of family and work were far
more salient than the concerns of poli-
tics.' Even when citizens made the extra-
ordinary effort to become informed
about some set of important public
issues, their lack of direct political exper-
ience might still render their opinions
inadequate. Ordinary citizens are inev-
itably outsiders;they cannot be expected
to appreciate the complexities seen by
political decision makers. Indeed, even
social scientists who specialize in study-
ing a particular policy area may still
remain too far outside to appreciate
nuances. As Walter Lippmann said,
The man of affairsobservingthat the social
scientistknows only from the outsidewhat
he knows, in part at least, from the inside,
recognizingthatthesocialscientist'shypoth-
esis is not in the natureof thingssusceptible
of laboratoryproof, and that verificationis
possibleonly in the "real"world,has devel-
opeda ratherlow opinionof socialscientists
whodo not sharehisviewson publicpolicy.9
8. Bryce, American Commonwealth, 2:239-
46; Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York:
Free Press, 1972, first published in 1922), p. 36; see
also Kenneth P. Adler, "Polling the Elite: The
Attentive Public" in this volume of The Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social
Science.
9. Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 235. Lipp-
mann continues: "In his heart of hearts the social
scientist shares this estimate of himself." Alas!
 64 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
Still, citizens need not be informed of
details of specific policies. It is surely
sufficient for them to provide general
guidelines for public policy or to render
opinions on the effects of current poli-
cies. Citizens can be sound judges of
policy, even if they are not originators.10
We cannot conclude that citizens neces-
sarily have nothing useful to say about
public policy.
But, assuming that citizens have
something useful to say, are public opin-
ion polls a better means of communicat-
ing their opinions and interests than are
other means of communication, such as
voting, lobbying, writing letters, agitat-
ing, or editorializing in the mass media?
There are two aspects to this question:
the reliability of polls and the validity of
the answers given to pollsters.
Problems of reliability are difficult,
but they are, in principle, soluble. Sam-
pling reliability can be enhanced by
appropriate techniques known as prob-
ability sampling and by achieving a high
rate of response. The reliability of
answers can be enhanced through the
development and testing of standard
question formats and standard tech-
niques of interviewing.
Nonetheless, small changes in the
wording or the format of questions can
produce surprisingly large variations in
answers, and even the order of questions
or the environmental context in which
they are asked can affect the answers."1
It is thus wise to give little credence to
opinions based on responses to a single
question, howeverstraightforwardit may
appear.
10. Compare Pericles, "Funeral Oration,"
p. 540.
11. See Howard Schuman and Stanley Presser,
Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys (New
York: Academic Press, 1981), chaps. 2, 3, and 7;
and Burns W. Roper, "Are Polls Accurate?"in this
issue of The Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science.
If, after taking these considerations
into account, the results of a poll are
judged reliable, does it follow that the
opinions expressed are more deserving
of the attention of political decision
makersthan are those expressed through
other forms of political communication?
Not necessarily. Those who lobby,
demonstrate, write letters, or otherwise
communicate their opinions to political
decision makers usually feel more in-
tensely about these opinions than do
those who merely reply to a poll. More-
over, those who hold their opinions
intensely may also be better informed.
Thus, to get an estimate of opinions and
interests regarding an issue, political
decision makers may need to weigh the
intensity of feeling and the knowledge of
those expressing opinions, not merely
the number of persons on each side.12
The problem of the validity of re-
sponses to polls is even more difficult.
Publicly expressed opinions are often
conventionalized versions of what peo-
ple really think, conventionalized so as
to conform to what they perceive to be
societal norms.13 It is hard, for instance,
to find many Americans these days who,
when asked by pollsters, admit to racial
bigotry; yet, as witnessed by events sur-
rounding the recent mayoral elections in
Chicago and Philadelphia, the behavior
of many may belie their answers.
If we assume that people's opinions
form the bases for their actions, then the
simplest test of the validity of an ex-
pressed opinion is to examine the link-
age between opinion and some behavior
that is its logical consequence. The
absence of such linkage would suggest
that the opinion expressed was an invalid
indicator of relevant political behavior.
12. Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular
Government, pp. 12-14.
13. Smith, Public Opinion in a Democracy,
p. 17.
 PUBLIC OPINION, POLLING, POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
The presence of such linkage would
provide support for the assumption that
the opinion expressed was a true one.
The Gallup Report, for example, peri-
odically prints a table that shows the
accuracy of the Gallup poll by juxtapos-
ing its final predictions in presidential
elections against the actual vote over
time.'4 The closeness of the actual to the
predicted election outcomes provides
good evidence that responses to the poll
regarding electoral preference are valid
indicators of subsequent collective elec-
toral behavior. In the aggregate, people
vote the way they say they will vote
when asked a few days before the elec-
tion.
The discovery that most election pol-
ling is valid, however, is hardly moment-
ous. In a democratic polity voting is one
of the easiest political actions citizens
can take. It generally requires little
expenditure of money, time, or effort,
and except for voting in referenda, it
generally represents little in the way of
direct expression of opinion on ques-
tions of public policy.'5 A more difficult
problem is to demonstrate a linkage
between expressed opinions on policies
concerning gun control, abortion, civil
rights, nuclear freezes, inflation, unem-
ployment, taxation, bureaucracy, edu-
cation, investment, armament, energy,
environmental pollution, street crime,
and the like and subsequent political
behavior.
This is not to dismiss the usefulness of
public opinion polls. Responses to ques-
tions about issues are often associated
14. The Gallup Report, no. 204 (Princeton,
NJ: The Gallup Poll, Sept. 1982), or no. 200 (May
1982), for instance.
15. Sidney Verba and Norman H. Nie, Partic-
ipation in America (New York: Harper & Row,
1972), chap. 3; or Sidney Verba, Norman H. Nie,
and Jae-on Kim, Participation and Political
Equality (New York: Camoridge University Press,
1978), chap. 3.
65
with particular party affiliations or par-
ticular voting patterns. Despite recent
increases in strength, however, the direct
link between positions expressed on
current issues and subsequent voting
behavior-let alone other subsequent
political behaviors-remains generally
weaker than that between party affilia-
tion and the vote, or between opinions
expressed about candidates and the
vote.'6 Answers to pollsters' questions
represent interesting information that
representatives, political strategists, an-
alysts, and others will wish to consider.
That they represent valid expressions
of a generalwill of the people is extremely
doubtful.17
Finally, even if polls contain ques-
tions on which the public has coherent
opinions and which are conventional
enough to elicit valid expressions of
those opinions, must those policies
favored by popular opinions by imple-
mented immediately? Theories of repre-
sentative democracy are by no means
unanimous in requiring that representa-
tives conform to day-to-day trends of
public opinion. The Burkean concep-
tion of representative government, for
instance, maintains that representatives
owe their constituents their best judg-
ments on matters of policy, not slavish
conformity with their opinions.
Constituents judge their representa-
tives' overall performance at periodic
elections not on the basis of their con-
formity with popular opinions on any
particular issue. Indeed the very pur-
16. See Herbert Asher, Presidential Elections
and American Politics, rev. ed. (Homewood, IL:
Dorsey Press, 1980), chap. 4; Norman H. Nie,
Sidney Verba, and John Petrocik, The Changing
American Voter, enlarged ed. (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 291-306.
17. Lindsay Rogers, The Pollsters (New York:
Knopf, 1949), chap. 1,9; Richard E. Vatz and Lee
S. Weinberg, "The Imperial Pollsters," USA
Today, 107: 6-9 (Sept. 1978).
66
pose of institutional features like stag-
gered elections, separation of powers,
and checks and balance is to slow the
actions of government so as to curb the
excesses that might result from quick
conformity of public policy with the
passionately held opinions of the day.18
FORGOTTEN ROOTS
If many of the concerns discussed in
the preceding section seem familiar, it is
because they have long been foci of
attention of students of public opinion.
Readers will notice that most of the
works cited thus far were first published
prior to World War II. It happens that
just as governments' concern for public
opinion preceded scientific polling, so
too did the study of public opinion. In
fact, a rich and insightful literature on
public opinion existed before George
Gallup ever fielded his first national
survey.19
Much of the current work on public
opinion, however, seems oblivious of
this earlier literature. Despite sophisti-
cated treatments of the mechanics of
public opinion polling and the tech-
niques of measurement and data analy-
sis, it frequently reveals a lack of aware-
ness or concern for the questions that
were raised by earlier writers about the
linkage of publicly expressed opinions
to behavior and policies. It is discon-
certing, to say the least, to find no refer-
ences to Bryce, Lippmann, Lowell, or
Rogers in some of the leading textbooks
18. Edmund Burke, "Speech to the Electors of
Bristol," 4 Nov. 1774, in Cohen, Communism,
Fascism, and Democracy, pp. 436-37; Bryce,
American Commonwealth, 2:259; Rogers, Poll-
sters, chap. 7.
19. See Robert Weissberg, Public Opinion
and Popular Government (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall, 1976), chap. 1.
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
on public opinion.20 It is as though no
important work on public opinion was
done before the advent of scientific
polling.
The bulk of current work using data
derived from public opinion polls really
skirts the problem of the extent to which
expressed opinions are linked directly to
policy outputs or to any political behav-
ior more demanding than casting a vote.
Questions of the validity of responses to
polls as indicators of true opinion or of
political behavior are raised, but they
are generally brushed aside with argu-
ments that defend face validity-the
question appears to measure what it
purportsto measure-or construct valid-
ity-the responses to the question are
consistent with responses to another
question in accordance with some theo-
retically derived hypothesis. But most
studies never quite get around to exa-
mining the simple criterion of whether
or not the responses are predictive of
subsequent political behavior.2'
The upshot of this has been the
emergence of a sophisticated and fasci-
nating body of findings about political
attitudes and opinions, but a body of
20. See, for example, Robert S. Erikson,
Norman R. Lutbeg, and Kent L. Tedin, American
Public Opinion, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley,
1980); Harry Holloway and John George, Public
Opinion (New York: St. Martins, 1979); Dennis
Ippolito, Thomas G. Walker, and Kenneth L.
Kolson, Public Opinion and Responsible Demo-
cracy (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1976);
Robert G. Lehnen, American Institutions, Politi-
cal Opinion and Public Policy (Hinsdale, IL:
Dryden Press, 1976); Alan D. Monroe, Public
Opinion in America (New York: Dodd, Mead,
1975). Monroe does contain one reference to
Bryce regarding political parties.
21. See Monroe, Public Opinion in America,
pp. 33-34; Edward Carmines and Richard Zeller,
Reliability and ValidityAssessment (Beverly Hills,
CA: Sage Publications, 1979), pp. 17-27; David J.
PUBLIC OPINION, POLLING, POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
findings that contains little more of
direct relevance to public policy deci-
sions than it did when Lippmann, in
Public Opinion, lamented its lack of
relevance. The use of polling has greatly
enhanced our knowledge of how child-
ren acquire party loyalties, of how par-
ticular groups claim to view one another,
and of what public opinions people
express about particular policies and
issues. We have learned a great deal
about how some bundles of opinions are
consistently related to some other bun-
dles of opinions. But the only political
behavior that we have learned much
more about is voting.22
While better knowledge of why var-
ious groups of people vote as they do
may be of intrinsic interest to selected
readers, and of practical interest to
many campaigners, it simply does not
tell us much about how, if at all, public
opinion relates to public policy. The
early public opinion analysts were never
so naive as t call an election result an
expression fpopular opinion. "The
motives for a ballot of any kind [includ-
ing referendumand initiative]often differ
with different people who vote the same
way," observed Lowell.23"It would take
us hours to express our thoughts, and
calling a vote the expression of our mind
is an empty fiction," Lippmann wrote.24
Ironically, the impact of the behav-
ioral revolution on the study of public
opinion has been to draw our attention
Hanson, "Relationship Between Methods and
Findings in Attitude-Behavior Research," Psy-
chology 17:11-13 (1980).
22. The use of survey research by Sidney
Verba and his colleagues to examine other forms
of political participation has been an important
exception. See fn. 15. See also Lester W. Milbrath
and M. L. Goel, Political Participation, 2nd ed.
(Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1977),especially chap. 1.
23. Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular
Government, p. 25.
24. Phantom Public, p. 56.
67
away from observing and measuring
behavior directly and toward measuring
such behavior indirectly by means of
public opinion polls.25 As polling data
have become more available, we have
attempted to link responses to observed
behaviors less often than to link one set
of verbal responses to another set of
verbal responses. True, verbal responses
comprise a form of behavior, but we
must ask ourselvesif the verbal responses
validly representthe behaviors that orig-
inally piqued our interest. Let us look at
some examples of how using polling
data has tended to seduce researchers
away from observing actual behaviors.
Discrepancies between
opinions and behavior
When public opinions from the 1940s
through the early 1960s affirmed that
the opinions expressed by most Ameri-
cans failed to exhibit the high levels of
interest in and rationality about politics
that had been idealized in popular ver-
sions of democratic theory, political
scientists responded by formulating a
plural-elite theory of democracy. This
formulation viewed democracy as an
arrangementof political institutions that
provided for open competition among
interest groups, political parties, and
freely chosen political leaders. It de-
manded little more of citizens beyond
acceptance of the legitimacy of the gov-
ernmental institutions and procedures.
Whether or not large numbers of citi-
zens were ignorant or apathetic concern-
ing politics was irrelevant so long as
voluntary groups looked out for most
25. For a discussion of various views on
behavioral political science, see Heinz Eulau, ed.,
Behavioralism in Political Science (New York:
Atherton, 1969).
68
citizens' private interests, political par-
ties organized and aggregated those in-
terests into coherent platforms, and
competing leadership elites vied for the
nominations of the parties and the elec-
toral support of the populace.26
Polls showed that Americawas blessed
with a civic culture, a bundle of attitudes
held by the citizenry that allowed this
plural-elite democracy to flourish. Even
though citizens were apathetic toward
politics, they nonetheless expressed
support for the political institutions and
processes that encouraged democratic
standards of behavior among political
elites. Moreover, most Americans ex-
pressed confidence in their abilities to
gain sympathetic hearings and desired
actions from public officials, albeit most
also admitted they normally did nothing
more than express their general appro-
val or disapproval through their votes.
In the main, however, the attitudes of
inactive citizens seemed consistent with
the interpretation that apathy toward
politics represented a tacit expression of
satisfaction.27
The stark events of the 1960s sug-
gested a less sanguine interpretation.
Following riots in the black ghettos of
Brooklyn and Philadelphia in the sum-
mer of 1964, riots and disorderly dem-
onstrations became commonplace in
major cities and college campuses
throughout the nation. These events
suggested that beneath the apathy of
many citizens lay frustration and resent-
ment, not a consensus about American
political institutions and processes.
Most public opinion analysts who
had relied upon data from polls, how-
26. Michael Margolis, ViableDemocracy (New
York: Penguin, 1979), pp. 96-112.
27. See Michael Margolis, "Democracy:
American Style," in Democratic Theory and Prac-
tice, ed. Graeme Duncan (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1983), pp. 125-29.
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
ever, failed to anticipate these develop-
ments.28 They had been studying the
responses to the questions pollsters had
set instead of measuring the contrasts
between the promises and performances
of the programs of the Great Society
and between the rhetoric of freedom and
the conduct of the war in Vietnam.29It
became apparent that expressions of
apathy could also represent a reaction to
a political system that normally avoided
severe conflicts only by ignoring con-
troversial problems that were of prim-
ary concern to less powerful groups like
poor blacks or young people.30
Opinions expressed in polls regard-
ing racial integration, handgun control,
and women's rights have also tended to
contrastwith political behavior. National
Opinion Research Center public opin-
ion polls show that by 1970 over 80 per-
cent of nonsouthern whites favored in-
tegrated public schools, an increasefrom
40 percent in 1942.31Polls by the Uni-
versity of Michigan's Survey Research
28. Report of the NationalAdvisory Commis-
sion on Civil Disorders (New York: Bantam
Books, 1968), chaps. 1, 4; James McEvoy and
Abraham Miller, eds., Black Power and Student
Rebellion (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1969),
passim.
29. Compare Rights in Conflict: The Violent
Confrontation of Demonstrators and Police in the
Parks and Streets of Chicago during the Week of
the Democratic National Convention of 1968
(New York: Bantam Books, 1968), pp. 13-58;
Aaron Wildavsky, The Revolt Against the Masses
and Other Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1971),
pp. 52-65.
30. Jack Walker, "A Critique of the Elitist
Theory of Democracy," American Political Sci-
ence Review, 60:285-95 (June 1966); William
Gamson, "Stable Unrepresentation in American
Society," American Behavioral Scientist, 12:15-21
(1968).
31. Andrew M. Greeley and Paul B. Sheatsley,
"Attitudes toward Racial Integration," in Public
Opinion: Its Formation, Measurement, and Im-
pact, ed. Susan Welch and John Comer (Palo
Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1975), p. 51.
PUBLIC OPINION, POLLING, POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
Center-Centerfor Political Studies show
that by 1976 only 10 percent of the white
population admitted to favoring segre-
gation of the races, down from 25 per-
cent in 1964.32Gallup surveys indicate
that throughout the late seventies and
early eighties, nearly 60 percent of
Americans favored passage of the equal
rights amendment (ERA), while about
the same percentage favored stricter
laws regarding the sale of handguns.33
If we accept these expressions of
opinion at face value, they are difficult
to reconcile with so-called white flight
from integrated public schools in the
north, resistance among whites to the
election of black mayors in Chicago and
Philadelphia, failure of the required
number of state legislatures to ratify the
ERA, and the general lack of success
that proponents of stricter handgun
control have had in Congress, the state
legislatures, and on statewide referenda.
Literature based on
polling data
While opinions expressed in public
opinion polls may or may not be related
to subsequent political behavior, the
very availability of polling data has led
to a burgeoning literature that frankly
takes little direct interest in behavior.
Paul Abramson's Political Attitudes in
America and Howard Schuman and
Stanley Presser'sQuestions andAnswers
in Attitude Surveys represent recent
examples of high quality work of this
genre.34 Those whose primary interest
32. My tabulations from "American National
Election Study, 1964," ICPSR no. 7235 and
"American National Election Series: 1972, 1974,
and 1976," ICPSR no. 7607. (Institute for Social
Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor).
33. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1972-77
(Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1978);
also annual volumes from 1978 to 1981.
34. Abramson, Political Attitudes in America
(San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1983).
69
lies with the behavioral consequences of
political attitudes would probably find
these books ratherthin. Abramson looks
no further than reports of turnout and
partisan vote, and Schuman and Presser
deal with no political behaviors more
complex than writing letters or giving
money to support or oppose policies
regarding gun control and abortion.
Despite these authors' cautions that
expressed attitudes are not the same as
political behavior, the danger exists that
the further researchersand readersdelve
into the archives of public opinion polls,
the more prone they will become to
assume that expressions of opinion are
in fact valid indicators of subsequent
behavior.
This sometimes occurs obviously, as
when, with a flip of the page, "stated
candidate preferences" as measured by
"candidate thermometers" in 1979 are
transformed into predictors of the vote
in 1980.35Or it can occur more subtly, as
when the concept of "political toler-
ance" is slowly transformed from a
behavioral trait of the polity into an atti-
tudinal trait of those polled.36As Robert
Weissberg stated it,
Theflawis in thewholeapproachto political
tolerance.... Surelythis attitudinalcompo-
nentis worthyof study,yet it is hardto argue
that this should be the primaryresearch
focus. The importantand prior questions
concernthe existenceof tolerancein society:
Can unpopulargroupsexpresstheirviews?
Candissidentsholdpublicoffice?Arepeople
harassedbecause of their political views?
Oncethesequestionsareansweredone may
35. John H. Aldrich et al., "The Measurement
of Public Opinion About Public Policy: A Report
on Some New Question Formats," American
Journal of Political Science, 26: 403-05 (Mar.
1982).
36. John L. Sullivan, James Piereson, and
George E. Marcus, Political ToleranceandAmer-
ican Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1982), chap. 9.
70
then turn to mass survey data for possible
explanation.37
Lacking the treasure troves of polling
data available to modern analysts, the
earlier students of public opinion were
less likely to be sidetracked by the study
of attitudes. They kept their efforts
directed toward detecting the connec-
tions between behavioral manifestations
of public opinion-lobbying, demon-
strations, media campaigns, votes, and
the like-and the development of public
policy. Their techniques of data analysis
were less sophisticated and their mea-
surements were less reliable than those
of modern analysts, but their findings
and conclusions were usually no less
valid.
THE LIMITS OF POLLING
The major conclusion to be drawn
from the foregoing discussion is that
public opinion polling is but one of a
number of ways to measure public opin-
ion. Indeed, if we intend to compare
public opinion with public policy out-
comes, polling may not even provide a
valid measure, especially in circumstan-
ces in which social norms dictate the
proper opinions to express. As we have
seen, it is no longer fashionable for
Americans to admit to attitudes favor-
ing racial segregation. Similarly, we
may safely conjecturethat few Americans
publicly favor that millions of their
compatriots should suffer from poor
nutrition, inadequate housing, or lack
of proper medical care. In such circum-
stances, however, actions-white flight
and tolerance of cuts in food stamps,
subsidized school lunches, nutrition for
pregnant women at risk, rent subsidies,
37. "Review of Political Tolerance and Ameri-
can Democracy, "American Political Science Re-
view, 77: 278 (Mar. 1983).
THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY
public housing, medicare, medicaid, and
the like-truly speak louder, and with
greater validity, than do words.
Because they lacked the rich amounts
of polling data now available, pre-war
generations of public opinion analysts
had to rely upon observations of actions,
not statements of opinions, as their
principal measures of public opinion.38
And while such measures often gave less
reliable estimates of the distribution of
opinions than do scientific polls, they
almost always represented valid expres-
sions of public opinion. It turns out that
much of the literature of public opinion
that preceded scientific polling remains
relevant, and we ignore it at our peril.
The value of public opinion polling,
then, must be kept in perspective. The
results of polls can provide us with reli-
able estimates of what people say they
want, but these results must always be
considered in the context in which they
were obtained, and whenever possible
they must be validated by comparison
with subsequentpolitical behaviors. Even
when we are satisfied that the results of a
poll reliably and validly represent the
public's opinions and interests at a given
point in time, we must still consider how
quickly we expect the popular opinions
to be translated into formal public pol-
icy in a mass representative democracy.
Finally, in assessing the value of any
polling data, we should consider the
extent to which the data bear directly
upon the specific research questions we
38. The widespread introduction of interactive
cable television and computer networks linked to
private homes may eventually lead to replacing
current methods of sampling and interviewing
with more sophisticated interactive methods that
can measure the information, initiative, and inten-
sity of concern of citizens regarding any public
issue. See Margolis, Viable Democracy, chap. 7;
James C. Strouse, The Mass Media, Public Opin-
ion, and Public Policy Analysis (Columbus, OH:
Charles Merrill, 1975), chap. 9.
PUBLIC OPINION, POLLING, POLITICAL BEHAVIOR
wanted to answer. As we read this and
other volumes in which researchers rely
heavily upon data derived from polls,
we must avoid becoming dazzled by the
sophistication and care with which the
data have been collected and analyzed.
Instead we must check that the research-
ers' dependent variables are indeed the
ones we wish to study. In the end, pol-
ling data are simply verbal responses,
surrogates for direct observations of
behavior. It is the behavior that is nor-
mally of ultimate interest.
With these points in mind, let us turn
for a concluding note to an admonition
71
by Arthur F. Bentley, first published in
1908:
We mustdeal withfelt things,not withfeel-
ings,withintelligentlife,not ideaghosts.We
must deal with felt facts and with thought
facts, but not with feelingas realityor with
thoughtas truth.Wemustfindthe onlyreal-
ity in the properfunctioningof the felt facts
and the thoughtfactsin the systemto which
they belong.39
Amen.
39. The Process of Government (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1908), p. 172.