American Academy of Political and Social Science

Public Opinion, Polling, and Political BehaviorAuthor(s): Michael MargolisSource: Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 472, Polling andthe Democratic Consensus (Mar., 1984), pp. 61-71Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Politicaland Social ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1043883Accessed: 23/01/2009 14:46

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ANNALS, AAPSS, 472, March 1984

Public Opinion, Polling, and Political Behavior

By MICHAEL MARGOLIS

ABSTRACT: The advent of scientific public opinion polling gave demo- cratic governance a new dimension. For the first time representatives could 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.

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HROUGHOUT recorded history, governments have 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 governors have nothing to sup- port them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and popular.4

1. Encyclopedia Americana, international ed., s.v. "Aesop"; Encyclopedia Britannica-Micrope- 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.

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, given 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- mous amount of time required to study all issues so that they might delegate 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 representatives had little more information-beyond the fact

5. Compare Walter Lippmann, The Phan- tom Public (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1925), pp. 20-21.

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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 rather elabo- 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.

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 affairs observing that the social scientist knows only from the outside what he knows, in part at least, from the inside, recognizing that the social scientist's hypoth- esis is not in the nature of things susceptible of laboratory proof, and that verification is possible only in the "real" world, has devel- oped a rather low opinion of social scientists who do not share his views on public policy.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!

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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, however straightforward it 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 makers than 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.

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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.

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 general will 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).

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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.

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 purports to 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 Validity Assessment (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1979), pp. 17-27; David J.

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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 referendum and 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.

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 ourselves if the verbal responses validly represent the 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 arrangement of 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).

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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 America was 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, Viable Democracy (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.

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.29 It 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 contrast with 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 increase from 40 percent in 1942.31 Polls 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.

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Center-Center for 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 1964.32 Gallup 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's Questions 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).

lies with the behavioral consequences of

political attitudes would probably find these books rather thin. 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 researchers and readers delve 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 1980.35 Or 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.36 As Robert Weissberg stated it,

The flaw is in the whole approach to political tolerance.... Surely this attitudinal compo- nent is worthy of study, yet it is hard to argue that this should be the primary research focus. The important and prior questions concern the existence of tolerance in society: Can unpopular groups express their views? Can dissidents hold public office? Are people harassed because of their political views? Once these questions are answered one 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 Tolerance andAmer- ican Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), chap. 9.

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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 conjecture that 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).

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 subsequent political 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.

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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

by Arthur F. Bentley, first published in 1908:

We must deal with felt things, not with feel- ings, with intelligent life, not idea ghosts. We must deal with felt facts and with thought facts, but not with feeling as reality or with thought as truth. We must find the only real- ity in the proper functioning of the felt facts and the thought facts in the system to which they belong.39

Amen.

39. The Process of Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1908), p. 172.

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