public opinion sampling

Social Science and Public Policy

PUBLIC OPINION SAMPLING

Thomas Fitzgerald

l though the content ious campaigns of the last presidential election now seem far behind us,

we can still recall h o w wasteful, wearing, and wrong-headed they had become. Information over- load cont r ibuted to the dissonance, in part from opinion polling organizations that surveyed and projec ted voter intentions th roughou t the campaigns.Their doings have oddly escaped critical attention, even now as they cont inue to announce national "approval ratings" of the President. Ex- cept for occasional grumbling by media commen- tators about h o w daily tracking polls conver ted an important electoral process into another horse race, journalists rarely challenged the repor ted numbers or asked about the methods and reiter- ated questions by which they were produced.We can only guess if their silence reflects awe of the industry 's claims of scientific accuracy, or unwill- ingness to challenge an en t renched c o m p o n e n t of the news business itself.

Examination of h o w polling organizations op- erate in political contests must be placed within a larger frame of their work for clients o ther than the two Parties. Surveys they conduct , on almost any issue or consumer preference, routinely tell us whe the r we favor or are opposed to school vouchers, gun control, capital punishment , irra- diation of foods, legalized euthanasia, decriminal- izing mar i juana , p raye r in schools , NATO or NAFTA, genetic cloning, whe the r we wor ry about this or that environmental hazard, and h o w we are to be graded on an a t m o s p h e r i c variable k n o w n as "consumer confidence." Ques t ioning data from those polls is difficult for media 's side- l ined s p e c t a t o r s , but one m i g h t e x p e c t the majoritarian conclusions found in their repor ts would evoke skepticism somewhere .

Those inside the industry occasionally admit to certain longstanding problems in methodology: wording and sequencing of interviewer questions,

the funnel ing effect of fixed answer categories, how to best handle "no opinion" replies or refus- als to part icipate, and of language ambiguit ies among ethnic groups. Other insiders have also w o n d e r e d publicly whe the r wide differences of response and"intensity" of opinion are accurately represented by linear scale codes, and w h e t h e r r e sponden t preferences are really separable and free-standing, or closely linked in consciousness . We need, however, to look beyond those familiar problems of survey practice to fundamental ques- t ions of cognit ive representat ion, and poll ings ' place in the politics of governance in a republic. That requires examining the intellectual back- g round and me thodo log ica l cho ices original ly built into the t echnology of op in ion col lect ion some 60 years ago.

Founding Assumpt ions Trust among both clients and the public in the

accuracy of opinion polling numbers is vital to the con t inued success of the industry, and in turn depends on cont inued conf idence in the technology of random sampling. It has certainly not been wi thou t its uses. Where very large quantit ies of material products must be examined, for instance, measurements of a small sample of items randomly selected can efficiently stand for results w h i c h would have been shown had every item been sub- jected to separate testing. Checking bolts at an au tomot ive plant to see if an entire sh ipmen t mee t s me ta l lu rg ica l s t andards , or m e a s u r i n g growth characterist ics in biological exper iments wi th large quantities of seed grain can reliably utilize r andomized sampling wi th in ca lcula ted margins of error.

Transfer of sampling pract ices f rom factories and agricultural institutes to electoral campaigns came by a circui tous route. Forecast ing w h i c h presidential candidate would be elected had long

PUBLIC OPINION SAMPLING 53

been a matter of public interest, but in the 1930s, after marketing research was developed to learn about consumer preferences and purchase decisions, applicat ion in politics was a natural move. Early at tempts were made to determine voter intentions in advance of election, by "straw vote" at public assemblies, or asking people on a down- town street. The famously failed p red ic t ion in 1936 by a conservative magazine, based on information compi led from cards mailed in by its sub- scr ibers-- that President Franklin Roosevelt would not be re-elected--dramatically revealed the built- in bias of self-selecting respondents .

Replacing those selection methods by random- izing formulas took time to work out. More im- portantly, it required a shift of perspect ive to see opinions as objective entities residing in anonymous units of a populat ion, (individual persons), distributed across a landscape of census tracts. In the original form of sampling opinions, respondent selection was detached from education, oc- cupation, age, or o ther sources of identity. Later, of course, selection stratifications and sub-sets were devised, emphasizing profile matching of demographic variables for particular studies, along with vir tuoso statistical balancing, wh ich could suppor t claims for the status of polling within social science.

Corporate marketing groups and some government agencies early recognized the new methods as having the potential to anticipate consumer or voter behavior in a dependable way. Supposedly average or "typical" adults (except those wi thou t te lephones or a stable address), could be asked a few questions repeated in uniform wording, while responses were easily aggregated by limiting them to a few short codified alternatives. Consultants then d rew a remarkable conclus ion , also wel- comed by clients: inasmuch as the "blindfolded picker" (tables of random numbers ) gave every adult an equally probable and fair chance, however small, of being selected to answer, those results could be projec ted and generalized as rep- resenting views held by the rest of the country.

Behind that ambi t ious ampl i f i ca t ion of response data was another assumption, namely that randomly identified quest ionnaire respondents could be extracted from their diverse and reticu- lated life settings in the same way that sample bolts were p icked out of factory containers for testing compl iance with engineer ing specifica- tions. This not ion conf la ted two very different populat ions: on the one hand, nearly identical

objects like bolts (steel, not w o o d or glass, wi th only slight differences in size,weight or hardness) and on the other, humans w h o differ enormous ly along many dimensions , some of w h i c h elude specifying.The handful of bolts a worker carries to test equ ipment will provide dependable read- ings for bolts not measured, but for w h o m do survey s e l e c t e e s - - n o t in sh ipping crates but dis- p e r s e d a c r o s s p r e c i n c t s , p a r i s h e s and coun t i e s - - speak , o ther than themselves? Surro- gated equivalence, however, was a move easy to make at the time, and fit with fashionable academic concepts of the 1940's about leveling down in massified class politics, and owed something to Marxisant outlooks, then much in the air.

Random Sampling Dogma Identifying survey respondents by eliminating

pre-disposing circumstances (party affiliation, age cohort , union membersh ip , urban residence, and so on) will not, however, insure that those selected are "representative" or typical. Check marks for names of individuals on a researcher 's t e lephone call list does not make them members of an actual collectivity, that is, an existing minori ty or majority. Put plainly, r a n d o m selection does no t equa te wi th representat iveness in h u m a n popu- lations. Polling consultants, of course, have always claimed otherwise, and in the past half century, that d ic tum has b e c o m e so taken for g ran ted among the public and governing elites that see- ing through it requires a gestalt shift.

The idea of randomness-as-fairness was given c redence during years of the military draft, and now cont inues in publici ty displays picking State lot tery winners f rom numbered balls falling from a wire tumbler. Similarly, we have come to think of a sample as in itself a representat ive mixture, as a "sampler" package of edible goods sold in a shop. But persons differ immensely beyond arbi- trary demograph ic markers .Their genetic traits, their expecta t ions or evasions f rom interests and purposes , their diversions and projects, their cultural her i tage and learn ing no t classifiable as "years of education," their exper ience in work and family life, their state of health and consequen t hopes or fears, and m u c h more, are mingled in endless combina t ions in the con t inuous becom- ing of each distinctive man and woman.All their lived t ime is cons t i tu t ive of the narrat ives by which they make sense of their c i rcumstances, and of w h o they consider themselves to be. In- deed, it is difficult to say exactly wha t represen-

54 SOCIETY �9 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2002

t a t i ve means in regard to persons, nor can it be demonst ra ted h o w presumpt ive stand-ins, by answering a few questions, can speak for anonymous multitudes. Even the comfortable term "cross-sec- tion" refers to a diagrammatic view of a thing, thus canno t be c o n g r u e n t to humans . Ins tead of a sample, therefore, a less misleading term would be illustrative assortment.

The phan tom image of a comparat ively few citizens w h o are put forward as proxies for a who le nat ion con t inues largely uncha l lenged , perhaps th rough habituation to the facticity of press reports, often good-enough in o ther news areas, as D-J closing pr ices or baseball league standings. At this writing, for example, one of the major polling organizations reports on opinions on environmental issues, declaring that a "50% majority" of Americans say "improving the envi- ronment should take priori ty even w h e n it con- flicts with economic growth," and 58% reportedly agreed that "protect ing the env i ronment should take priori ty over preserving personal p roper ty rights." Notable here are the forced, e i ther-or choices, and excluded middle grounds. More remarkable in these sweeping conclusions about complex, in te rdependent economic and social issues, was the respondent count : 813 nat ionwide, w h i c h works out to th ree - thousandths of one percent of the count ry ' s popula t ion of 281 million. Each of the 813 individuals arbitrarily selected by a remote pollster had, in effect, been assigned and author ized to represen t 338,000 other Americans w h o m they did not k n o w - - a n immense responsibi l i ty!--and w h o had not asked that respondent to speak for them. When based on such practices, the usual claims for polling responses being representat ive of the opinions of the nation's people defy c o m m o n sense.

Quest ions in polls tend to split social issues into conventional partisan opposi t ions, while fil- tering out nuanced, multi-sided understandings of problems, and recogni t ion of the connec t i ons be tween them. Perspectives of cultural and ethnic minorities will of ten be absent in a national sample of 800 or 1200, especial ly those w h o gather in ne ighbo rhoods and enclaves: Amish, Hmongs, Or thodox Jews, Iroquois or Maricopa, Catholic nuns, Central Amer ican e c o n o m i c or political refugees, seriously disabled people and those in institutional or custodial care, to name some of those often ignored on the sidelines ... along with other sorts w h o m the Census Bureau admits it undercounts . Even if one of them does

get to answer a polling call, his or her const rual of the issue, and the quest ion phrasing, will be in terpre ted f rom within a shared local narrative and dist inct si tuation, and no t necessar i ly the "same" ques t ion stated by its cons t ruc tors . The c rowds and mix of groups w h o tu rned out not long ago in Seattle, Quebec City, and Genoa streets to protest , under difficult condit ions, the obscure doings of the World Trade Organizat ion and World Bank, came as a surprise to officials and journalists, w h o failed to recognize new currents of political difference and out-of-the-box dissent.

W h o s e Views Matter? Remarkable it is h o w few in or out of public

office, represent ing the Left or the Right, will challenge opin ion surveying pract ices or their influence on legislative proceedings . Disappoint ing too, that intellectuals and academics o therwise pro tec t ive of their own individuality and self-de- terminat ion remain uncrit ical of assertions that a n o n y m o u s individuals for w h o m no one has voted or o therwise e m p o w e r e d can be put forward as having decided complex public issues for all the rest of us, and with a few words. By com- parison, w h e n accredi ted types turn up on tele- vised panels to discuss a topical issue, they are afforded time in advance for reviewing sources, making notes , and p r e p a r i n g we l l - cons ide red opening statements.

They also benefit from exchange of responses wi th co-panelists a round the table w h o help to s h a p e - - o r s h a r p e n - - e a c h o thers ' views. In those events , o f ten congenia l , con fe r ee s are no t re- str icted to the phrasing of a discussion leader 's questions, but are permit ted to explore key terms in a widening gyre. Ordinary (non-expert ) peop le also unders tand inherent connec t ions b e t w e e n social problems, but are not in a posi t ion to dispute the way in which an issue is formulated and presented in a poll. Instead, they are offered a stan- da rd ized buffe t of p r e p a r e d answers , a f ixed choice menu of political options from a franchised chain. It is take-it-or-leave-it as shown, wi th no chance to express alternative needs, wants , or conce rns about ingredients.

Tens ions from the Start Much about the limitations of commerc ia l ly

managed opin ion p o l l i n g - - h o w it works up and interprets response answers, its defensive internal culture, its pos ture toward respondents , and especially its i n s t rumen t s - - r e f l ec t poll ing's ori-


gins in academic departments . It has failed, however, to resolve certain inherent opposi t ions be- tween two differing orientations to the work. One can be characterized as Benthamite Utilitarian, later classical economics , which sees an indepen- dent, (atomized) calculating agent who rationally chooses be tween hedonic alternatives in an im- personal market; the o ther side by "the science of society," originally of Auguste Comte who prom- ised that laws of collectivities would be discov- ered, as they had been previously found in the material world.

Some seventy years ago, those in the universi- ties w h o had been struggling to earn accep tance for psychology as a legitimate science we lcomed John Watson's founding of the school of Behav- iorism. Watson b rough t toge the r cond i t ion ing s t imu lus / r e sponse and r e w a r d / r e i n f o r c e m e n t learning theories already in the air, and provided an escape from the tangled imprecis ion of the psychoanalyt ic , mentalistic, and introspect ivis t approaches of the time.

The behaviorist faction was able briefly to pros- per with claims for exact descript ion, predict ive control, and quantified input-outputs easily dem- onstrated in laboratory exper iments by copying the observational practices of the natural sciences. Eventually, their extensive efforts were compro- mised by an th ropomorph ic imput ing of internal drives, fears, and so forth, which could not be di- rectly observed, while they leaped over o ther in- tervening variables in the experimental context itself. Measurements of reactions of caged rodents and other creatures, minutely recorded, nonetheless filled the journals with peer reviewed papers, n o w forgotten on the shelves of library stacks. Al though the behaviorist ideology failed, especially f rom its denial of subject ivi ty w h e n ex- tended to human studies, certain habits of dis- t a n c e and a d i d a c t i c s tyle g r e w up a m o n g exper imenta l psychologists , lordly impresar ios presiding over stage-managed trials wi th passive, confined, or cognitively restricted subjects.

Those working attitudes also moved into survey technology. Even now, they cont inue to in- form the polling industry 's attitude toward survey r e s p o n d e n t s , ev iden t in an o b j e c t i f y i n g orientation and pe rempto ry style of contact . Be- neath the hurr ied courtesy, a con tac ted p rospec t is a means to an end, a thing inspected, put t ing the quest ion asker in tension wi th the pe r son called, w h o does not regard herse l f as a mere emitter of [R], but as knowledgeable in her own

life. Elsewhere we use the term respondent to refer to one w h o answers quest ions formulated by others, as a diffident or compl iant defendant in courts of law. It fur ther implies a passive, even unequal role, compared to active exchange in civil society, where all sides can make inquiries, revise or reinterpret a quest ion.

During the same era, o ther academic research- ers con t inued to seek a cognit ive model of soci- e t y - a n d general inductive t h e o r y - - t h a t wou ld earn the prestige and author i ty enjoyed by the physical sciences. Over the years ,American soci- o l o g y b r u s h e d aside C o n t i n e n t a l he s i t a t i ons around Verstehen and the human subject, and held to the foundat ional rule that human groups, as integrating wholes , are a pr ior reality, the basic p h e n o m e n a to be investigated and explained.

This theoret ical line was elaborated at great length byTalcot t Parsons as structural-functionalism, and in the 1950s became the dominant orientation among academic sociologists for research on the organization of modern societies. Individu- als were depic ted as c o m p o n e n t units of a ratio- nal-instrumental, equi l ibrated order, shaped by abstract forces, especial ly internal ized cultural norms which "predictably" direct their behavior. Functionalism eventually lost favor, as numerous criticisms accumulated, particularly about its fail- ure to acknowledge persons as active agents w h o continually interpret, redefine, and differentially apply rules and norms (in contras t to being me- chanically control led by them) thereby realizing f reedom within a given structure, and gradualist changing it. Nonetheless , the bias of functionalist theory, wi thho ld ing a u t o n o m y from p e r s o n s - - other than observing scient is ts--had by then been incorpora ted into rout ine pract ices of the polling industry by closing off r e sponden t a t tempts at critical discourse wi th the inquiry itself.

While both psychological and sociological perspectives contr ibuted to the development of opinion poll ing technology, the unresolved breach be tween the two fields is still visible w h e n surveys are publicized. Pollsters ' in terpre ta t ion of resulting percentages and sums, expec ted by pay- ing clients in market ing and political organizations, turns easily to familiar pop-soc io log ized categories of demographics: race, age, sex, income level, class, occupat ion, education, religion, house- hold size, location, disability, marital status. Re- por ts cont inue to make reference to those markers, as if they still mean wha t they once did, while pre tending to ignore their g rowing elasticity and

56 SOCIETY ~ SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2002

porous boundaries, such as a dozen racial mix- tures and four sexes, along with crisscrossing in- tersect ion with o ther categories.

Aside f rom the diff icul t ies of us ing demographic labels, the methods by wh ich question- naire data is compiled stands in opposi t ion to the stories made from it. How so?The thrust of sociological and e thnographic orientat ions for study- ing tribes, communit ies , sects, clans, classes, insti- tut ions, c rowds , part ies , conger ies , and o t h e r collectivities, has been to grasp them as bounded entities, with their own unifying characterist ics ("culture," most prominent ly) as substantive reality. Polling consultants refer to plural categories in their reports, but they fail to explore active and on-going process within them. They resort instead to copying d o w n replies of a comparat ively few individuals (however selected), while separating them from others in their own referential context, as if each were a recluse in a solitary bed- sitter, or a desert island castaway.Those methodological isolates are then bundled to compr ise an imaginary--"vir tual"--col lect ivi ty . Such a collectivity can never be visited, of course, because it has no location; its existence is wholly dependen t on a c o m p u t e r - g e n e r a t e d t e l e p h o n e list, a s imulacrum (Baudrillard's term), that is to say, an image which reflects no actual presence, and asks no direct observational effort. Meanwhile, those who agree to answer the pollster 's questions con- tinue to believe they are answering as Sam or Mary or Ted or Alice, unaware they speak for conceptual collectivities, their own voices amplified as if arising in chorus from assembled multitudes.

Without an integrated theory about the struc- tures of affiliation and inf luence in part icular collectivities where citizens live, the polling industry has difficulty explaining h o w they shift, press against, change, expand or decline, or h o w all of that is ref lected (or ant ic ipated) in expressed opinion.Their model for inquiry about beliefs and intentions is not one of in ter twined lives of mu- tual d e p e n d e n c e and exchange, but resembles social contract theory, where separately situated, compe ten t individuals pursue their preferences, and come to decisions based on independen t as- sessment of evidence.That depic t ion is no more relevant to the processes of con t empora ry politics or civil society than the icon of 19th cen tu ry New England town meetings. In a recent study done for the Cato Insti tute, Rober t Weissberg shows h o w many opin ion polling quest ions do a serious disservice bo th to respondents (and their

legislatures) by asking them to make cho ices on complex issues wi th no information on compara- tive costs, risks, and trade-offs, those inevitable realities for the politics of debate and compro- mise.

A Changing Episteme Opinion polling is only one express ion of an

historic shift in our taken-for-granted ways of ap- p rehend ing and unders tand ing the world , and what is justified or accep ted as knowledge . It is an epis teme of several strands, and still unfold- ing. In Sources o f the Self, and o ther studies, phi- losopher CharlesTaylor calls at tention to the widening inf luence and uncrit ical accep tance of the cognit ive or ientat ion of empiricism, mode led on natural science but extending beyond it. Its stance and framing perspect ive is that of a d isengaged observer w h o sets aside his or her actual presence in a contextual background, to act as a"punc- tual se l f " - - f rees tand ing , dis tanced, self-invent- i n g - a s if it w e r e a d i s e m b o d i e d , n e u t r a l subjectivity.

Accordingly, units of data d i sembedded f rom differ ing c o n t e x t s can be co l l ec t ed and reas- s embled like in t e rchangeab le , m o d u l a r Lego- blocks.All those fragmented, depersonal ized, fully externalized data units are well suited to comput - erized input-output information process ing, and that in turn, to the extensive infrastructures of technology. Commercial polling is similarly com- patible, wi th its freestanding, uniformly additive units of opinion,wai t ing to be handed over to the collector. Its research orientat ion might therefore be appropr ia te ly termed "the particle mode l of op in ions" for its r e semblance to the re ign ing theory of advanced physical s c i ence ,whe re all of reality is cons t i tu ted of elementary, sub-atomic p a r t i c l e s - - a n ult imate r educ t ion i sm w h i c h ig- nores emergence and potentiality.

Opinion polling prospers f rom long exposure by the public to the quasi-official, numer ic ized grammar built f rom disassembled, quantif ied ma- terials. We catch sight of the epis temic shift in popular preference for displays of facts over o ther styles of telling, and in equating informat ion in statistical form wi th knowledge. Similarly, habituation grows for accept ing the centrali ty of num- b e r - c o r r e l a t i o n s , weights, averaged scores, t rend lines, ratios, ranking scales, rates, statistical tests, indices, and other now standard measures - -as the most convinc ing and reliable s ta tements about wha tever is important .Yet few outside research


organizations can locate conceptual assumptions, funders ' expectat ions, or compromises (naming, sorting, smoothing, discarding, bypassing factors too difficult to measure) folded into a survey re- port, so cannot dispute its conclusions, especially where soft data is hardened into bar graphs and paraded across the screen. When news anchors read off the latest polling results, say on assisted euthanasia or prayer in the schools, those are made to sound as if a consensual national opinion about those questions exists as a substantial presence, hovering somewhere overhead, perhaps in capacious cyberspace.

Willingness to accep t the au thor i ty of that grammar is also consistent with the nominalist turn, among commercial communica tors and paid persuaders, to substitute linguistic construct ions, opaque surfaces, and synthetic screen images for exper ienced actualities. People in the industrial- ized countr ies live under that nominalist reign, but as they are given little choice and otherwise distracted, they may fail to notice the costs in lost content , relevant context , and qualitative charac- ter that have been filtered out. Not surprising then if they give up trying to get behind the surfaces of presented versions to see things as they are in rounded presence.

As I wa tched the evening news recently, there again was the head of a well-known public opinion survey organization, telling us with great confidence and earnest emphasis whatAmericans are thinking these days and what they want and hope for.After he read off a series of numbers and percentages from various polls, the program host did not need to ask this shaggy eminence how he came to his conclusions. Maybe he was making some of it up, but I had to wonde r h o w he could know so much from compute r printouts. Did they really portray the aspirations and needs of Ameri- cans in all their variety, while not neglect ing the outsiders and the marginalized, mingling at local strip malls, gas stations, on buses and trains, in fast food places, in multiplex cinemas, in parks on a Sunday afternoon? Would those people recognize themselves in his comments? How to find out, one way or another, if nobody gives them time to say what they mean, or listen long enough while they work it out.

The opinion industry has many friends in high places. Its services to politics of the center are we lcomed by tutorial government agencies, economic forecasters, Beltway planners, lobbyists and insider advisors, major party leaders, and much

of the mainstream media. Polls help to smoo th over populis t dissent by claiming to have located unseen lodes of agreement , in part by assembling agreement through statistical leveling, and assign- ing possible responses, howeve r diverse, into a few coded al ternat ives.They provide assurances that the nation has been consulted, while turning a t t en t i on away f r o m o r d i n a r y c i t i zens be ing c rowded out of deliberations that count . Polling also reminds us of plebiscites in count r ies whe re masses were seen as unstable or inarticulate; not needing such theatricali ty here, the information- opinion business has maintained a d e h a u t e n h a s

posture of scientific inquiry, while offering elabo- rate rationales to screen out inquiry about itself. Moreover, with popula t ion g rowth in sight of 300 million, and Congressional districts cor respond- ingly widened, e lected Representat ives b e c o m e less accessible to const i tuents w h o want to be heard. So despite systemic distortions and exclu- sions, the polling industry will make up the defi- cit with dispatches f romThe People, as they settle, one by one, every issue and p r o b l e m wi th a phoned- in majority.

Credentialled Decision-Maktug Population g rowth is not the only source of

the lessening of citizen influence with legislators, and presumpt ive subst i tut ion by f requent opinion polling. Equally impor tant is the con t inued evolution of technology, carrying near or far con- sequences for all of our citizens. In the past de- cade, a remarkable expans ion of b io techno logy made possible by advances in genetic research, have raised many serious social, ethical, legal, and personal concerns , but thereby sharpen the di- lemma of popular par t ic ipat ion in legislative and institutional decisions about them.Arcane molecular biology and the technical difficulties of devis- ing p rope r regulat ions wou ld suggest, as wi th earlier problems of o ther high technology, the issues will be tu rned over to the well p laced and credentialled at invited forums. Implicat ions of biological science for human, animal, and plant life forms are even more difficult for many partisan advocates to dispute because of their quasi- official descript ive on to logy of "only" and "noth- ing more than .... "

As transferral of issues arising from applications of molecular biological research comes to be ac- cepted, we can expec t the polling es tabl ishment to press forward to provide a semblance of public contr ibut ion. Some opinion surveys will also

58 SOCIETY �9 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2002

b e c o m m i s s i o n e d b y t h o s e w h o have an e c o n o m i c

i n t e r e s t in o u t c o m e s , u s ing t h e i r o w n v e r s i o n s o f

t h e i ssues . H o w e v e r s p o n s o r e d , p o l l i n g m e t h o d -

o l o g y as c u r r e n t l y d e p l o y e d w i l l n o t b e a b l e to

t e l l us as i n d i v i d u a l s a n d as a n a t i o n , in a c o m -

p r e h e n s i v e a n d b a l a n c e d way, h o w w e r e g a r d - -

a n d w h a t w e w a n t to d o a b o u t - - t h e n e w ge-

n e t i c c h a l l e n g e s . T h i s b e c a m e c l e a r w h e n

q u e s t i o n s a b o u t s t e m ce l l r e s e a r c h w e r e f i r s t

ra i sed , and a w e l l k n o w n a n c h o r o n a p r i m e - t i m e

n e w s s h o w a n n o u n c e d to h is n a t i o n a l a u d i e n c e ,

"pol l s s h o w a m a j o r i t y o f A m e r i c a n s s u p p o r t s t e m

ce l l r e s e a r c h " w h i l e 53% f l a s h e d on t h e s c r e e n

b e h i n d h im.

F r o m t i m e to t ime, e d i t o r i a l s cal l for a n a t i o n a l d e b a t e on o n e o r a n o t h e r o f the e m e r g i n g g e n e t i c

w o r r i e s ( p e r h a p s m i x e d w i t h b e n e f i c i a l o p p o r t u -

n i t i es ) , b u t t h e r e wi l l b e n o s u c h d e b a t e . N o t w i t h - s t a n d i n g tha t absence , a compara t ive ly few m e n and

w o m e n , i m m e r s e d in the pa r t i cu l a r i t y o f t he i r lives,

wi l l c o n t i n u e to reac t to ca l le rs ' s c r i p t e d p r o m p t s

by po l i t e ly saying s o m e t h i n g a b o u t a lmos t any prob-

lem; the i r ( w h a t e v e r ) c o m m e n t s wi l l be c o l l e c t e d

as g e n e r a l i z e d c o n c l u s i o n s a b o u t t he res t o f t he

c o u n t r y b y r e m o t e and s e q u e s t e r e d q u e s t i o n con-

s t ruc to r s , w h o c a n n o t be q u e s t i o n e d in tu rn .

Thomas Fitzgerald is a consultant fo r research a n d p l a n n e d change in organizations. His work is re- f lected in publ icat ions in educat ional a n d other professional journals, as well as critical essays elsewhere, mos t recently in Tikkun a n d First Things.

The formation, maintenance, and well being of American civil society is a topic of intense debate in the social sciences. Until now, this debate has lacked rigor, with the term "civil society" commonly used interchangeably and imprecisely with other terms such as civic engagement. Today's discourse also lacks methodological discipline and relies too heavily on narrowly selected evidence in support of a particular argument. In this invaluable contri- bution to the debate, Marcella Ridlen Ray supplies an empirical study based on a theoretical model of democratic civil society, one that posits high lev- els of communication, diversity, autonomy, media- tion, and voluntary association.

0-7658-0139-6 (cloth) 2002 330 pp. $39.95/s

Changing & Unchanging Face or U.S. Civil Society with a [ort"~ord by Francis Fukuyama


public opinion sampling

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