The Political Uses of Public Opinion Lessons from the Estate Tax Repeal
In the previous chapter it was noted that citizens in democracies are not generally expected to justify their views to others. But this does not mean that politicians are uninterested in understanding those views. On the contrary, each year politicians pour millions of dollars into polling, focus gr...
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Published in | The Real World of Democratic Theory pp. 180 - 218 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Book Chapter |
Language | English |
Published |
Princeton
Princeton University Press
22.11.2010
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | In the previous chapter it was noted that citizens in democracies are not generally expected to justify their views to others. But this does not mean that politicians are uninterested in understanding those views. On the contrary, each year politicians pour millions of dollars into polling, focus groups, and other instruments to inform themselves about every nook and cranny of public opinion. They have an obvious, and much studied, motivation for doing this: the need to win elections. Less often attended to than the role of public opinion in electoral strategies is the subject that concerns us here: how does |
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ISBN: | 9780691090009 0691090009 0691090017 9780691090016 |
DOI: | 10.1515/9781400836833.180 |