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The Political Significance of Opinion Polls
Liz Young
Statistics Group
Introduction
Opinion polls play a significant role in Australian politics. The precise
character this takes is a contested issue. Arguments focus on who drives
opinion polls: the public, political actors (politicians, political parties
and interest groups) or the pollsters. This research note assesses the political
significance of opinion polls by reviewing the role of each of these groups.
The Public
The claim that popular opinion drives opinion polls appears compelling.
The popularity of the Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition, gauged
by opinion polls, remains crucial in debates over party leadership (see
chart below). Policy is also seen to be shaped by attitudes expressed in
opinion polls. For example, political interest in environmental issues has
been linked to popular concern expressed through polls.(1)
To interpret politics as a response to opinion polls, however, provides
only a superficial understanding of political events. Opinion polls may
play a part in determining a party's leadership, but this is only one
concern among many including the candidates capacity to lead the party
or articulate a cohesive political platform. Similarly, opinion polls
do place particular issues on the political agenda, but they rarely shape
specific policies, determine how effectively those policies are implemented
or provide insight into policy areas that remain outside of public debate
because they are not of interest to the general public, highly technical
or a security risk.
Political Actors
The view that political actors drive opinion polls is widely held. From
this perspective political actors are interested in the polls because they
provide the information required to sell a political image or particular
policies. This has resulted in the common criticism that opinion polls tend
to represent elections as a horse race, with candidates being primarily
concerned with how they react to data published in the latest polls. (2)
It is certainly the case that political actors use opinion polls to
assess their public image and identify ways it might be improved. Moreover,
polls that indicate popular reactions to specific issues clearly help
political actors to tailor their political campaigns. For instance, the
ALP's emphasis on its support for Australia becoming a Republic may be
interpreted in this way because opinion polls had suggested that this
would strengthen the Party's electoral appeal. The view that political
actors drive opinion polls is premised on the notion that the political
impact of polls is limited to how political actors present themselves
and the way they publicise or avoid particular issues. Polls are not seen
as a way for the public to influence the policy position of the political
actors in question.
It is only logical that political actors prefer to use polls for their
own purposes. Yet the majority of opinion polls that are the subject of
media analysis (and therefore public interest and debate) are undertaken
by independent polling organisations like Morgan, AGB: McNair and Newspoll,
all of which avidly defend their impartiality. This suggests that the
majority of opinion polls that enter the public domain are far from being
the tools of political actors.
The pollsters
The particular role played by pollsters is determined by whether they are
independent or privately commissioned. The activities of independent polling
organisations are closely tied to the media whose principal concerns involve
a mixture of 'selling news' and a commentary on contemporary political debates.
These polls tend to be on political questions of public interest, such as
party popularity, party leadership, voting intentions or popular reactions
to issues of notoriety. Because the reputation of independent polling organisations
is based on their perceived impartiality, the influence of pollsters is
typically restricted to their role in selecting issues and designing the
questions asked in polls, both of which may be seen as introducing bias
into independent polls. It is widely recognised that issues can be brought
into political debate by forms of media attention such as polls. Thus, polls
and the prejudice of pollsters, can play a role in defining political debate.
Bias may also be found in the sorts of questions that pollsters ask. For
example, polls commissioned to investigate public reaction to the ALP government's
Native Title legislation in 1993-4 varied considerably depending on whether
or not respondents were informed that Native Title required Aboriginal people
to demonstrate an ongoing association with the land. Those polls that failed
to provide this information had a clear bias built into the questions. (3)
Whether bias is intended or not, it clearly has political ramifications,
effecting popular perceptions of the issue, media attitudes and political
calculations.
When political actors commission firms to undertake polling on their
behalf they are adopting a political strategy, one aimed to achieve particular
political outcomes. There is no assumption by either the client or the
polling organisation that these polls will be used in a fair manner. For
instance, details of poll outcomes are usually only leaked into the public
domain when it suits the client. The political significance of this sort
of activity varies depending on how astutely the information that has
been gathered is used. The crucial point is that this sort of polling
is designed to gain political advantage. Therefore, when these polls are
released, they need to be treated with a high degree of caution, recognising
that their aim is to further the specific interests of a political actor.
Conclusions
- Some polls do influence political decision making. This tends to be
rare, however, and most polls do not influence the implementation of
policy.
- Political actors would like to be able to manipulate opinion polls.
Their capacity to do so is restricted by the fact that the most widely
publicised opinion polls are undertaken by independent polling organisations
whose reputations are based on their impartiality.
- The role of opinion polls varies depending on their type. It is therefore
important to identify whether an opinion poll has been undertaken by
an independent organisation or has been privately commissioned.
- Independent opinion polls are far less likely to be biased, but this
is not always the case and all polls should be analysed with a degree
of caution.
Privately commissioned polls are highly susceptible to manipulation
by political actors. These polls should be recognised as a part of particular
political strategies and scrutinised rigorously.
Endnotes
- C. Bean, I. McAllister and J. Warhurst 1990 The Greening of Australian
Politics: The 1990 Federal Election Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.
- M. Goot and T. Beed 1979 "The Polls, the Public, and the Reelection
of the Fraser Government" In H. Penniman (ed) The Australian National
Elections of 1977 Washington D.C, American Enterprise Institute.
- M. Goot 1993 "Polls as Science, Polls as Spin: Mabo and the Miners"
Australian Quarterly v. 65 (4) Summer 1993: p.137.
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