Public Opinion

Covering the good, the bad, and the ugly of polling, this work serves as an important handbook on the ways to understand what citizens are really thinking and how those views can be translated into governmental action.

The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations presents the findings of the American Public Opinion Report regarding U.S. foreign policy. The council also provides access to previous reports.

A survey of the historical roots, theoretical foundations and normative claims of 20th-century conceptualizations of public opinion. It examines research strategies such as polling, the "spiral of silence" model, and the role of the media in the formation and expression of public opinion.

Providing an in-depth analysis of public opinion, including its origins in political socialization, its role in the electoral process, and the impact of the media, American Public Opinion goes beyond a simple presentation of data to include a critical analysis of the role of public opinion in American democracy. New to the Tenth Edition Updates all data through the 2016 elections and includes early polling through 2018. Pays increased attention to polarization. Adds a new focus on public opinion and immigration. Covers new voting patterns related to race, ethnicity, and gender. Reviews public opinion developments on health care. Expands coverage of political misinformation, media bias, and negativity, especially in social media. Defends political polling even in the wake of 2016 failings.

This book tracks Americans’ changing attitudes about smoking over the last century. It carefully examines how Americans came to understand the health risks of smoking, how the tobacco industry sought to reframe smoking, and how public support for tobacco control affected lawsuits, elections, and public policies.

This book is about how opinion polls are reported in the media. Opinions polls are not reported in the media as unfiltered numbers, and some opinion polls are not reported at all. This volume demonstrates how opinion polls travel through several stages that eventually turn boring numbers into biased news in the media. The framework offered in this book helps to understand how some polls end up in the news coverage, and which systemic biases abound in the news media reports of opinion polls. In the end, a change narrative will be prominent in the reporting of opinion polls which contributes to what the general public sees and shares. The findings cover journalists, politicians, experts and the public, and how they all share a strong preference for change.

This book examines the ways in which the views of the public inhabit the counter-terrorism policy space, with a focus on the UK case. Drawing insights from Critical Terrorism Studies, Critical Security Studies and studies of public opinion, the book develops an argument that the relationship between public opinion is complex, iterative and mutually instantiating. Rather than public opinion and counter-terrorism policy existing in a simple, uni-directional causal relationship, the book argues that whilst counter-terrorism policy actors are informed by public opinion, in important ways they also construct that very opinion. This argument is made through an empirical analysis of UK counter-terrorism policy. Drawing on primary research interviews with key counter-terrorism policy actors, and security professionals, as well as original analysis of parliamentary debates, the book demonstrates that rather than UK counter- terrorism politics being closed and elite-driven, there exists a complex, dialectical relationship between public opinion and both the making and the implementing of counter-terrorism policy. This book will be of much interest to students of critical terrorism studies, counter-terrorism, security studies, British politics and communication studies.

The role of public opinion in nations' decisions to join or withdraw from the war in Iraq

This book examines the ways in which the relationship between public opinion and the use of military force has developed since the end of the Cold War. It addresses the question of whether a democratic foreign policy is possible.

"The common perception of the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 as a "political job", stitched up by a corrupt Scottish elite behind closed doors, is robustly challenged in this study, which shows how public debate and the mobilisation of popular opinion shaped the union crisis from beginning to end. It considers how the Country party sought to influence political outcomes by aggressively encouraging the public expression of oppositional opinion in pamphlets, petitions and crowds, from the Darien crisis of 1699-1701 to the parliamentary debates on incorporation in 1706-7. It also examines the government's changing response to these adversarial activities and its growing acceptance of the need to court Scottish public opinion. This book explores the meaning, legitimacy and power of public opinion in early modern politics and revises our understanding of how an incorporating British union came to be made in 1707. It is a significant contribution to the political, social and cultural history of a period and an event that remains contentious to this day."--Back cover.

This book presents hands-on information on how to plan, administer, and analyze opinion polls. Guidance is also offered on how to make this strategy accessible to public interest groups. Several examples, checklists, warnings of possible pitfalls, and lists of material and human resources occur throughout the chapters. Major sections address the topics of: (1) types of surveys; (2) questionnaire wording and construction; (3) interviewing; (4) preparing for and managing interviews; (5) sampling; (6) processing data; (7) analysis; and (8) shortcuts and pitfalls. An annotated bibliography is included. Appendices contain sample forms, techniques, and grids. Information on the software package POLLSTART is provided as well as a glossary of terms and a case study. (ML)

The 1930s policy of appeasement is still fiercely debated more than 70 years after the signing of the 1938 Munich Agreement. Less examined is the role of public opinion on the formation of British and French policy in the period between Munich and World War II. Public Opinion and the End of Appeasement in Britain and France is essential reading for scholars of the origins of World War II.