Democratic Politics and Survey Research

Abstract

Democratically inspired critics identify a number of problems with the contemporary identification of survey research and public opinion. Surveys are said to normalize or rationalize opinion, to promote state or corporate rather than democratic interests, to constrain authentic forms of participation, and to force an individualized conception of public opinion. Some of these criticisms are relatively easily answered by survey researchers. But the criticisms contain a complaint that survey researchers have largely failed to address: that survey research discourages the public, visible, and face-to-face generation of opinion. Public opinion researchers who use surveys paradoxically seek the opinions of citizens in private, nonpolitical situations. But nothing inherent in the methods of survey research requires this private focus. The author argues that by reframing the survey’s unit of analysis and considering alternatives to standard, national samples in political surveys, new democratic possibilities within survey research may be found.