ABSTRACT Populism raises questions about the extent to which public opinion should be a legitimate foundation for executive power. In the United States, it is often thought, such a foundation was established at the beginning of the twentieth century through the creation of a newly “representative” modern presidency. This new presidency, it is held, acts as an agent of populist majorities to undermine constitutional and legal norms. In fact, however, the argument for presidential representation is a long-standing (...) element of politics in the United States. It is appealed to, recurrently, by what might be called the party of opinion against its natural opponent, the party of law. (shrink)

Campaign advocacy is a common but rarely researched practice in British tabloid journalism. Newspaper campaigns give an account of ‘public opinion’ to politicians, make explicit claims to speak for ‘the public’ and authentically represent them, and also address readers in an unconventional way in order to recruit their support. This article therefore examines the effect to which agency is attributed to readers and other publics in two such campaigns, and argues that publics were portrayed as active only (...) in relation to the newspaper’s activity, and primarily as reacting emotionally to the problem. The campaigning press promote themselves commercially and politically as quasi-representatives who challenge distant and ‘out of touch’ political representatives with the populist impulses of ‘public’ demands, but without enhancing the democratic process, or publics’ position within it. (shrink)

The rise of authoritarian and nationalist forces is currently accompanied by a change in the way public opinion is formed and in the culture of debate, a phenomenon that has been described as a crisis of facticity. There is an urgent need to clarify the (factual) foundations and benchmarks for democratic negotiation, even if lies are nothing new in politics. The article analyses this shift and discusses to what extent the liberal problematization of post-factual politics is becoming a (...) way of coping with the neoliberal crisis of hegemony. Finally, it seeks to illuminate what these developments mean for those strands of critical social science dedicated to exploring the connection between truth and power and deconstructing truth claims. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship between journalism and right wing populist discourses in the context of broadcast news interviews. We analyse a specific feature of question design in which the public is invoked as a source of opinionated positions in adversarial interviewing. Analysing data from a range of socio-political contexts, we identify a shift in adversarial questioning along a scale of ‘soft’ populism, that is the attribution of views and concerns to a generic public ‘in crisis’, (...) to ‘hard’ populism, where interviewers construct hypothetical scenarios in which populist positions are attributed to ‘some people’. We argue that the democratic role of journalists as public watchdogs, holding politicians and public figures accountable on behalf of the public, is challenged by this normalisation of populist moral order discourses in a routine journalistic practice, both drawing on and contributing to the propagation of populist agendas and anti-democratic populist rhetoric. (shrink)

Larry Bartels is one of the most prominent political scientists in the areas of democracy, electoral politics, and public opinion. He is the May Werthan Shayne Chair of Public Policy and Social Sci...

The quasi-ubiquity of ICT is transforming contemporary politics and seems to deteriorate democracy, for the technologies undermine debates, contest the grounds of reason and truth, and influence people’s votes. Donald Trump’s election and Brexit are good examples of their effects on public opinion. More fundamentally, these technologies cause theoretical problems to the way we traditionally conceive public opinion. Thus, I seek to rethink public opinion beyond conventional approaches. Departing from Deleuze and Guattari’s work, I (...) develop the first steps of a post-representational theory of public opinion as a regime of political truths that has new dimensions of truth production with information and communications technologies. (shrink)

Abstract Building on Philip Converse's understanding of public opinion, John Zaller sees the evidence for the public's ?nonattitudes? as reflecting individuals? ambivalence concerning political issues. Because neither individuals nor the public collectively have what Zaller would call real attitudes, he concludes that the effectiveness of democracy rests on competition among intellectual and political elites. In truth, however, the public has many real attitudes that depend heavily on elite leadership, in ways that Converse did not initially (...) emphasize but that are consistent with both his observations and Zaller's model of mass opinion. The quality of the public's attitudes are, however, a point of serious contention. (shrink)

Generally, public opinion is measured via polls or survey instruments, with a majority of responses in a particular direction taken to indicate the presence of a given ‘public opinion’. However, discursive psychological and related scholarship has shown that the ontological status of both individual opinion and public opinion is highly suspect. In the first part of this article I draw on this body of work to demonstrate that there is currently no meaningful theoretical (...) foundation for the construct of public opinion as it is typically measured in surveys, polls, or focus groups. I then argue that there is a particular sense in which the construct of public opinion does make sense. In deliberative democratic forums participants engage in dialogue with the aim of coming to collective positions on particular issues. Here I draw on examples of deliberative democratic forums conducted on the social and ethical implications of science and technology. Conversation between participants in deliberative democratic forums is ideally characterized by individuals becoming informed about the issues being discussed, respectful interactions between participants, individuals being open to changing their positions, and a convergence towards collective positions in the interest of formulating civic solutions. The end-product of deliberation on a given issue might thus be termed a deliberative public opinion. ‘Deliberative public opinion’ is neither a cognitive nor an aggregate construct, but rather a socio-historical product. Criteria for its legitimacy rely on the inclusiveness of diversity of perspectives and the degree to which collective positions are defensible to a larger society. (shrink)

This major work surveys the historical roots, theoretical foundations, and normative claims of 20th-century conceptualizations of public opinion. It reanalyzes leading traditions, such as those of Lippmann, Dewey, and Noelle-Neumann, and reinvents some unjustly ignored ones, such as Toennies, Harrisson, and Wilson. The book critically examines popular modern research strategies such as polling and the 'spiral of silence' model and looks at the role of mass media in the formation and expression of public opinion.

To understand the prospects for global order and progress in the coming years, we explore the joint implications of three premises: (1) states advantaged by the current international order have stakes in its regularity and predictability, and thus in moving to counter or prevent threats to those stakes; (2) along impure public and club goods lines, they are more likely to make efforts to do so when some private or club benefits result; and (3) public opinion provides (...) a bounded policy acceptance envelope offering incentives and disincentives to national political elites to act as envisioned by the first two premises. We present a mosaic of public opinion in major OECD countries (the US, Japan, and major EU members) on three policy areas that contain international public goods elements. Actual contribution tendencies in those areas found in our previous work largely conform to the public opinion patterns reported here. Within the limits of available data, domestic political incentives as represented by public opinion warrant neither extreme optimism nor pessimism about the prospects for continuing contributions by OECD states to sustaining orderly functioning of the current world system. (shrink)

(1996). Public opinion and democratic culture: The French revolution. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 175-180.

(1996). Public opinion and democratic culture: The French revolution. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 175-180.

Using a recent example from US politics as representative of contemporary liberal democracies, this chapter highlights how public opinion is shaped through the exploitation of our epistemic interdependence and partisan bias. Climate change was an important issue leading into the 2010 US mid-term elections. Public opinion on climate change was subject to a number of willfully disseminated distorting influences, having a significant impact on the election’s outcome and subsequent political discourse surrounding climate change policies. One impact (...) of this type of exploitation is that it has epistemically compromising effects on the electorate, which in turn undermines democratic legitimacy. In the interest of defending democratic legitimacy, this chapter suggests we re-evaluate and update those liberal institutions necessary for informed public opinion surrounding our current political epistemic needs. (shrink)

ABSTRACT George Bishop’s The Illusion of Public Opinion does a superb job of showing how various errors and malfeasances in conducting and interpreting surveys have created illusions about public opinion. It thereby offers a very useful compendium on how to do, and especially how not to do, survey research. Nothing in the book, however, provides persuasive evidence for either of two more troubling “illusion” arguments: that collective public preferences on policy issues do not exist; or (...) that surveys cannot measure them. Instead, Bishop’s examples show that even in obscure, low‐information situations, well‐designed survey questions generally reveal meaningful collective policy preferences that are coherent, well differentiated, and reflective of citizens’ basic interests and values. (shrink)

Before expressing opinions, most people usually consider the standpoint of their friends nearby to avoid being isolated, which may lead to the herding effect. The words of celebrities in social networks usually attract public attention and affect the opinion evolution in the entire network. This process also causes the similar status quo. In this study, we find that the key figures play the guiding roles in public opinions who undertake the group pressure from information amount. Therefore, we (...) build the cost function on opinion changes to study opinion evolution rules for public persons based on the spreading scope of information and information amount. Simulation analysis reveals that the information amount held by agents will affect the converging speed of public opinions, while enhancing the ability of key nodes may no more effective in guiding public opinion. (shrink)

This paper considers the relation between philosophical discussions of, and social-scientific research into popular beliefs about, distributive justice. The first part sets out the differences and tensions between the two perspectives, identifying considerations which tend to lead adherents of each discipline to regard the other as irrelevant to its concerns. The second discusses four reasons why social scientists might benefit from philosophy: problems in identifying inconsistency, the fact that non-justice considerations might underlie distributive judgments, the way in which different principles (...) of justice can yield the same concrete distributive judgments, and the ambiguity of key terms. The third part distinguishes and evaluates three versions of the claim that normative theorising about justice can profit from empirical research into public opinion: that its findings are food for thought, that they amount to feasibility constraints, and that they are constitutive of normatively justified principles of justice. The view that popular opinion about justice has a strongly constitutive role to play in justifying principles of distributive justice stricto sensu is rejected, but it is argued that what the people think (and what they can reasonably be expected to come to think) on distributive matters can be an important factor for the political theorist to take into account, for reasons of legitimacy, or feasibility, or both. (shrink)

In bioethics as in other areas of health policy, historical institutional factors can shape policy independently of interests or public opinion. This article finds policy divergence among countries with similar national moral views of stem cell research, and explains that divergence as the product of path-dependency.

The rapid development of Internet technology has facilitated the dissemination of information that can threaten national security and public health, and effectively controlling the process of public opinion communication is an important topic in contemporary social network research. This paper establishes an official information-controlled public opinion propagation model based on the delay, latency, and conversion of public opinion communication under the control of official information. According to the influence and importance of the network (...) nodes, we theoretically derive the attitude conversion probability of the nodes, making the model more in line with the actual situation. Through actual cases, we analyzed the important influence of official information on the public opinion communication process and provided a theoretical basis for the government and relevant departments to supervise and correctly guide the public opinion network, which has certain practical significance. (shrink)

Are there significant variations across major religious faiths about the proper political roles of religion? Using recent WorldValues/EuropeanValues data from 63 countries we study the attitudes of mass publics on two separate aspects of this question. First, should religious beliefs be used as a criterion for selecting political leaders (dimension I)? Second, should religious leaders use their position for political influence (dimension II)? For dimension I we find that Muslims are somewhat more likely than followers of other faiths and denominations (...) to say that religious beliefs are important in selecting leaders. The remaining results of our investigation somewhat weaken or modify this result. On dimension II we find that Muslims do not stand out as comparatively favorable towards the view that religious leaders shall use their position for political influence. Finally, we find a negative, albeit weak and somewhat irregular effect of education on attitudes towards a close link between religion and political leadership (dimension I). However, this effect holds up equally well for Muslims as for other denominations, suggesting that Muslims are not immune to the effects of secularization. (shrink)

In 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidency committed to an ambitious program of “public investment.” Yet the plan Clinton submitted to the Democrat-controlled Congress in early 1993 was sharply scaled back in favor of an emphasis on reducing the federal budget deficit. Congress then made further deep cuts in Clinton's plan. This Democratic retreat from public investment would continue throughout the remainder of Clinton's presidency. In this article, I argue that the fate of “Clintonomics” was due mainly to (...) public opinion and electoral politics. In an epilogue, I examine the implications of this episode for the new intra-Democratic debate over public investment. (shrink)

Media has paid more attention recently on environmental issues caused by construction companies which imposes public opinion pressure on construction companies and could potentially impact their decision-making processes for green innovations. However, research on the relationship between public opinions pressure and construction company green innovation behavior is still limited. To understand how such public opinions pressure can impact construction companies' green transition and formulate advice accordingly, it is necessary to use empirical data to find the correlations. (...) Therefore, this research has gathered questionnaire data of the construction companies in Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle of China to study the influencing mechanism of environmental public opinion pressure on enterprise green innovation behavior, analyzes the realization path of leaders' environmental intention as a mediating variable in the impact of environmental public opinion pressure on enterprise green innovation behavior, and reveals the role boundary of environmental regulation as a moderating variable in the impact of environmental public opinion pressure on enterprise green innovation behavior. The results show that environmental public opinion pressure has a significant positive impact on enterprise green innovation behavior. More specifically, enterprise green innovation behavior is affected by leaders' environmental intention and the latter plays a partial mediating role between environmental public opinion pressure and enterprise green innovation behavior. Environmental regulation also enhances the sensitivity of companies to environmental public opinion pressure, and therefore can significantly strengthen the relationship between environmental public opinion pressure and enterprise green innovation behavior. Further research find that, compared with incentive-based environmental regulations, mandatory environmental regulations make companies more sensitive to environmental public opinion pressure and has a more significant positive moderating effect. The research conclusions could be used to provide theoretical reference with empirical data for accelerating the green innovation transformation and promoting the high-quality development in the construction industry. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Benjamin Page's thoughtful critique of my book, The Illusion of Public Opinion, strives to reassure readers that all is well—despite the book's extensive documentation of measurement‐error artifacts in numerous public opinion surveys. Page's own careful polling practices are not followed outside of elite academic survey centers. Moreover, even in such well‐run surveys, the respondents are often ignorant of the issues being probed. The fact that nonrandom reasons of some sort must be determining on‐the‐spot survey responses (...) may allow us to call the respondents “rational” in a loose sense. But the responses still don't represent actual opinions about the specific policy issues being probed—let alone well‐informed answers. Finally, while Page argues that measurement errors are most likely random, and should cancel out in the aggregate, the “miracle of aggregation” doesn't occur when the form, wording, and context of questions varies from survey to survey. And even when wording and context are held constant, the respondents' understanding of the same words can vary dramatically or subtly over time, due to new political events and their changing interpretation. (shrink)

Some self-declared defenders of democracy maintain that a suspension of the ‘cosmopolitan agenda’ is necessary to blunt the appeal of insurgent right wing populism. I argue that cosmopolitans should support this ‘inward turn’ when doing so helps to preserve the long-term viability of that agenda. Cosmopolitans must certainly motivate citizens of different countries to support it. However, they must also encourage those citizens to support democracy and inclusion at home, for support for the cosmopolitan agenda becomes less likely in (...) its absence. Therefore, cosmopolitans should support the inward turn when doing so makes it harder for right wing populists to erode popular support for democracy, inclusion, and the cosmopolitan agenda. Practically speaking, then, cosmopolitanism should not look that different from liberal nationalism in the short-term. Unlike liberal nationalists, though, cosmopolitans should only prioritize the defense of democracy and inclusion at home for practical reasons – not normative reasons. Accordingly, cosmopolitanism should look different from liberal nationalism in the long run, but not radically so. I engage with the empirical literature on public opinion and pay special attention to Lea Ypi’s argument for ‘statist cosmopolitanism.’. (shrink)

While much of the debate around the practice of normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) is focused on the potential violation of the dead donor rule (DDR), another concern is whether allowing this pr...

In recent years, institutional financial institutions such as the World Bank have taken a keen interest in the links between governance and economic development in East Asia and in other regions of the world. However, the concept of governance has proven difficult to measure in cross-national studies and its meaning in the minds of citizens and experts may differ noticeably. This article examines elite and mass perceptions of governance using the World Governance Indicators developed by scholars affiliated with the World (...) Bank and survey data derived from the 2006 wave of the AsiaBarometer Survey conducted in seven societies. The results of the analysis capture considerable variation at the country and individual levels for how citizens and experts perceive governance in this region of the world. In addition, a multivariate test uncovered some convergence between citizen and expert assessments but only for some of the various governance components. (shrink)

Anticipatory policy for gene editing requires assessing public opinion about this new technology. Although previous surveys have examined respondents’ views on the moral acceptability of various hypothetical uses of CRISPR, they have not considered whether these scenarios are perceived as plausible. Research in construal level theory indicates that participants make different moral judgments about scenarios seen as likely or near and those seen as unlikely or distant. Therefore, we surveyed a representative sample of 400 Americans and Canadians about (...) both the likelihood and the permissibility of 23 commonly discussed uses of gene editing. Respondents with more knowledge of gene editing generally thought these applications would be more likely within the next 20 years. There was a strong positive relationship between the perceived likelihood and permissibility of most CRISPR applications. Our results suggest that ongoing public engagement efforts for gene editing could be improved by taking its perceived time-frames into account. (shrink)

The need for those who govern to be accountable to the governed often conflicts with the right of an individual, albeit a public leader, to privacy. This survey found that most Ohio residents believe job performance can be affected by what goes on in private lives, but most don't believe scrutiny of private matters is a media responsibility and find such coverage excessive and unfair. Belief in importance of accountability was related to support for media's responsibility to provide scrutiny, (...) but not to concern with excessiveness and fairness. (shrink)

Public legitimacy consists of beliefs among the mass public that an international court has the right to exercise authority in a certain domain. If publics strongly support such authority, it may be more difficult for governments to undermine an international court that takes controversial decisions. However, early studies found that while a majority of the public trusts international courts, this was based on weak attitudes derivative from more general legal values and support for the international institutions. I (...) reexamine these claims with data for European courts, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice. First, using Google search data and media-analysis I find that, at least in Europe, information-seeking about international courts has increased and is at similar levels to national high courts and prominent international institutions. Second, trust in international courts remains strongly correlated with trust in international and domestic institutions. Countries in which more individuals trust their national courts are also countries in which more individuals trust international courts. Individuals who trust their national courts more are also more trusting of international courts. This undermines at least some interpretations of the credible commitment argument: in the minds of the general public, international courts may not be substitutes for poorly performing domestic courts, but extensions of a functioning rule of law system that they already trust. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is simply to show that, in bioethics no less than in other areas of health care, policy in democracies is shaped not only by principles and values, but also — and to some extent independently — by the shape and history of particular political institutions and past policies. “Path dependency,” or what one scholar has called the “accidental logics” of already-existing institutions, condition and guide national policy choices. These institutional and historical pressures can even create (...) substantial policy divergences between quite likeminded nations. I shall illustrate the point using some comparative data about national policies regarding research on human embryonic stem cells. The fact that gaps can develop between values and policies is readily visible to anyone who compares national stemcell research policies to the expressed attitudes of the citizens of various democratic countries regarding human embryonic stem-cell research. The role of path dependency and the accidental logics of institutional structure in creating those gaps can be illustrated by tracking down the details of the development of human embryonic stem cell policies in a few different countries. (shrink)

This short note analyzes how the public in Japan evaluates the performance of the cabinet and the two major parties, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Democratic Party of Japan (DP), and their impacts on the 2000 House of Representatives election held on 25 June.