The political use of poll results about public support for a privatized healthcare system in Canada (original) (raw)
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1 Résumé. En faisant correspondre les décisions sur 230 enjeux de politiques publiques avec les résultats de sondages nationaux sur ces mêmes enjeux, cet article cherche à quantifier le degré de consistance entre l'opinion publique et la politique gouvernementale entre 1994 et 2001. Les calculs révèlent que seulement 49 pour cent des décisions du gouvernement de Jean Chrétien sont allées dans le même sens que l'opinion publique, en nette diminution par rapport aux 69 pour cent observés pendant la période Mulroney (1985-1993). La baisse de consistance depuis 1994 est principalement attribuable à la divergence entre une opinion publique de plus en plus favorable au changement et idéologiquement orientée à droite et la politique du gouvernement de Jean Chrétien sensiblement plus résistante au changement et idéologiquement plus à gauche que celle de son prédécesseur. Le public a tendance à ignorer le manque de corrélation entre l'opinion et les politique gouvernementales parce que les enjeux en question sont relativement peu importants. Par contre, il semble que la corrélation entre l'opinion et les politiques soit beaucoup plus forte dans un petit nombre d'enjeux importants que le public reconnaît, créant ainsi l'apparence d'un gouvernement attentif aux souhaits de l'opinion publique canadienne.
Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 2004
Every weekday, the Dutch television company SBS6 broadcasts a programme entitled``the voice of the Netherlands'' (Stem van Nederland) in which an independent polling company presents the results of a poll about some newsworthy subjects. Sometimes, the poll deals with the question of whether or not the right candidate won the Pop Idol final, and sometimes it is about political decisions, such as the decision to expel 26 000 asylum-seekers, even though some of them have lived in the Netherlands for four or five years. Robert Weissberg probably could not care less about another Pop Idol poll, but in his Polling, Policy and Public Opinion he vigorously argues against politically informed polls, and those who argue that these polls can contribute to (enhancing) democracy. Weissberg's argument (in a nutshell) is that``everyday snapshots presented by today's polls displaying the social welfare state's popularity are either incorrect, grossly exaggerated, or öat bestöundemonstrated'' (page 14). He does not argue that there is no such thing as a public opinion, or that it is not worth learning about public opinion; what he opposes is that these polls have gathered an enormous political influence, even though they fail to give a good picture of societal wishes and demands. Furthermore, and Weissberg makes a big point out of this, they tend to favour liberal, left-wing pleas for more government with subsequent larger government expenditures. Being honest about his own political orientation, Weissberg has to acknowledge that the (biased) leftist orientation in the polls is not an inevitable characteristic of polling in itself, but rather the result of the interplay between liberal ideology and leftist social scientists arguing for more participation and democratisation. This bold argument is developed, and somewhat refined, in five chapters. In the second chapter Weissberg illustrates the problem of`wishes' turning into`hard choices'. Polls are part of the scientification of public wishes but, Weissberg argues, these public wishes are not always realistic. Citizens have little information, are neither properly informed on the trade-offs that certain choices imply, nor are the polled citizens always the brightest stars in the sky. The consequence is that political leaders are often faced with unrealistic one-sided demands for more government regulation and more government spending. The question then is whether this is a methodological weakness of existing polls, or a fundamental problem of all kinds of polling. Weissberg discusses some more complex forms of polling public opinion, such as contingent evaluation and willingness to pay. Although Weissberg concludes that these forms of polling might offer a better insight into``the voice of the people'', he argues that it is highly unlikely that a dramatic breakthrough in polling manners will take place, and thus``today's polling cannot supply the detailed information necessary to inform the vexing choices made by office holders'' (page 48). In chapter 3 Weissberg takes this subject one step further, tackling the concept of civic competence. True, this concept has gained solid ground in (leftist) social sciences, dealing with questions of participation and democratisation, and there might be a point in questioning the limits of this concept. The question is the following: when it comes to policymaking, are ordinary citizens competent to make decisions, or is this something that needs to be left to professional policymakers? Do not expect a discussion on scientific and political uncertainties at this point, Weissberg takes the position that, just like chefs make good meals, professional policymakers make good policies (page 53). Civic competence requires an amount of knowledge, insight, and intellectual capabilities that is hardly seen among ordinary citizens. The empirical evidence (chapters 4 and 5) to support this argument is related to two subjects: Clinton's plans to decrease class size, and the debate on children's daycare that took place in the United States. Polls showed that there was massive support for smaller class sizes and federal assistance for daycare. But were these polls proper illustrations of the real civil Reviews
Phony populism: The misuse of opinion polls in the National Post
Canadian Journal of Communication, 2007
This paper describes how the National Post regularly excludes polling details that are essential to an accurate reading of the data. It then looks at how business and labour issues are covered in the paper and shows that opinion polls are manipulated to confer popular legitimacy upon the economic conservatism of the Post's editors. It concludes by arguing that while polls may be presented as a form of direct democracy, they are more aptly regarded as promoting a phony populism: the use of popular idioms to mask an elite project. Although opinion-poll results are presented as the unfiltered expressions of popular sentiment, they are in fact regularly manipulated by media outlets. I find that rather than giving voice to the general population, polls in the National Post are routinely used to "manufacture consent" for the viewpoints of the corporate and political elite, while misrepresenting popular opinion.
Accounting for Biases in Election Surveys: The Case of the 1998 Quebec Election
During the last electoral campaign in Quebec, Canada, all the polls published in the media had a similar estimate of vote intentions, putting the Parti Quebecois (PQ), a centre-left party dedicated to Quebec sovereignty, clearly ahead, by an average of ®ve points in the last six polls of the campaign. The PQ won the election, held on November 30, 1998, but with a smaller share of the vote (43 per cent) than the contending Liberal party (44 per cent), a centre-right federalist party. Pollsters and many observers have maintained that the discrepancy between the polls and the actual vote could be explained either by a last minute shift in favour of the Quebec Liberal party or by differential turnout.
La Loi electorate du Canada, adoptee en 2000, regit la fa$on dont les madias doivent divulguer les donn&s techniques concernant les methodes utilises pour realiser des sondages en p^riode electorale. Mais la couverture mediatique des sondages faits hors des periodes electorales, qui n'est pas soumise a ces regies, ne fait l'objet que d'une autoregulation. Dans cet article, nous analysons la couverture faite par trois journaux {La Presse, le Globe and Mail et le Calgary Herald) de ces deux types de sondages. Nos resultats montrent que la fa$on dont les medias divulguent les donn^es techniques relatives aux sondages est loin de correspondre aux normes reconnues dans Tindustrie. Toutefois, ces informations sont au moins aussi completes dans le cas des sondages non electoraux que dans celui des sondages electoraux. Par ailleurs, on observe que, dans les articles de fond qui traitent de sondages realises pour les journaux qui les publient, on retrouve significativement plus de donnees techniques que dans les courts articles ou il est simplement fait mention de sondages non realises pour le compte des journaux qui les publient. Nous concluons done que les normes et les regies qui s'appliquent b la divulgation des methodes utilisees dans les sondages influencent peu la fagon habituelle dont les medias traitent des sondages.
Sampling and Non Response Bias in Electoral Surveys, The Case of the Quebec 1998 Election
During the last electoral campaign in Quebec, Canada, all the polls published in the media had a similar estimate of vote intentions, putting the Parti Quebecois (PQ), a centre-left party dedicated to Quebec sovereignty, clearly ahead, by an average of ®ve points in the last six polls of the campaign. The PQ won the election, held on November 30, 1998, but with a smaller share of the vote (43 per cent) than the contending Liberal party (44 per cent), a centre-right federalist party. Pollsters and many observers have maintained that the discrepancy between the polls and the actual vote could be explained either by a last minute shift in favour of the Quebec Liberal party or by differential turnout.