The search for the voice of the people: Public opinion polling and political representation in America.

How is the voice of the people represented in the American political system? My dissertation takes on this long-standing question in the context of a modern political system where opinion polls are ubiquitous. Polls are often viewed as unbiased pictures of the public will. However, the analyses reported in this dissertation suggest this familiar notion may be incorrect. The key is to focus on the interaction of individual political cognition and the larger political environment. I argue that the process by which individuals come to decide whether they have an opinion, and whether they choose to reveal that opinion to pollsters, introduces significant and predictable biases into public opinion signals. Because some people can not answer survey questions and others do not want to answer those questions, polls may paint an inaccurate picture of the public's sentiments on key issues. Using polling data from the 1970s and 1990s, I find that individuals who are unable to form opinions on questions regarding social welfare polices are disproportionately members of groups who are inclined to support such policies---such as minorities and the poor. This process ensures that expressed aggregate opinion concerning social welfare polices will be more conservative than the sentiment held by the population at large. The social processes of opinion expression may also distort aggregate opinion, depending on the political climate of the time. Analyses of data from the 1990s demonstrate that some individuals who oppose policies designed to ensure racial equality hide their socially undesirable opinions behind a mask of indifference. Surveys concerning racial attitudes therefore provide an inaccurate picture of public sentiment on such sensitive issues in the present day. By contrast, analyses of data from the 1970s suggest that don't know responses on racial policy questions were largely an expression of genuine ambivalence. Together, these results suggest that the degree of bias in measures of aggregate public opinion is a function of the political environment. In sum, measures of collective opinion may, under certain circumstances, accurately reflect the voice of the mass public. But in many cases, polls may fail to transmit the public will.Ph.D.Political scienceSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/132307/2/9963744.pd