First published in 1970 Public opinion polls and British politics provides an introductory guide to political polling in Britain. The book describes the polling organizations themselves, their sampling methods, and some of the general problems encountered in survey work. A distinction is drawn between polls concerned with voting intentions (predictive polls) and polls concerned with the expression of opinion (opinion polls), and problems of interpretation in each are discussed. Public opinion polls are then considered in the context of British politics – firstly their relationship with the general principles of representative democracy, and secondly their effect on the practice of politics. Finally, a word of caution is sounded against taking the polls too seriously as accurate indicators of the thinking of the British electorate and also against treating the implications of their potential uses too lightly. This book is a must read for students of British politics, election studies and political science.
Author(s): Richard Hodder-Williams
Series: Routledge Revivals
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 124
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Original Title
Original Copyright
Contents
List of Tables
Introduction
1 Preliminaries
Varieties of polls
The problem of defining public opinion
2 Pollsters and polling
The polling organizations
An introduction to sampling: random and quota
Miscellaneous survey problems
‘Don’t knows’ and the presentation of polls
3 Polls and elections
General election polls
By-election and between-election polls
Levels of intensity in party support
The ‘bandwagon’
4 Polls and the public’s opinions
The problem of meaningless opinions
Questions as a source of bias
Opinions and the notional value of one
Some more refined methods of measurement
5 Polls and British representative democracy
A democratic presumption stated
All the people all the time ?
Positive and negative public opinion
A democratic presumption reviewed
6 Polls and the politicians
The Government and pressure groups
The timing of general elections
The parties and polls: electoral considerations
Towards a consensus
The leaders and the polls
7 The survey concluded
Appendix: Selected Questions from a Gallup Poll Questionnaire
Further Reading
Bibliography
