Public Opinion?

Question

One reason why public policy often differs from public opinion is that:

A. public opinion polling is not always accurate
B. public opinion polling tends to express the opinions of a political elite
C. public opinion is easier to gage than public policy
D. public opinion tends to be more stable than public policy

Answer 1

A

Answer 2

I don’t believe it does. Think about the vast differences in possible political positions (get the alliteration of me!), like unregulated capitalism to anarchy to communism to deep ecology to anthropocentric beliefs. The majority of the public lie pretty closely in the middle of all of these. And think of all the many historical practices which are now considered barbaric. Put in this context we have a very strong consensus on most things.

I would ask why does public opinion SEEM to differ from that public policy?

And I would answer by saying that the politicians struggle for power, the Press’ lust for controversy and the general need for continued public debate will always bring the differences to the top. You won’t get a front page story saying “Government Gets It Bang On”, or an opposition leader saying “Well done minister, I agree with you”.

I’m not saying there is no significant gap between the two, and that only the nitty gritty is left to be debated. The need to tackle Climate change for example has huge public opinion and require further debate and currently there are crucial devides on how to go about it. In this case, as with many, I do think I see a fundamental reason: It takes more than a small majority of public opinion to create challenging policy. The governments feel they would lose more to the sceptical and stubborn minority by doing something drastic than they will lose the climate concerned majority by doing **** all. That’s why big issues never get a quick resolve, and why we need to keeping massing more support for climate action.

Things like tax rates are set cunningly at the precise rate that will win the most votes, only alienating the hard right and hard left through, and a happy majority is easy to maintain. The big and complex issues will see more of a gulf between the public and policy. Does this make sense? I’ve rambled again. Actually this question has got to thinking about all sorts of power dimensions and points to add. I’d better stop there. Hope my thoughts were useful.

Answer 3

It's actually A,C and D to some degree or another.

Policy is an extension of the governments desire. Opinion is the perception of the success or failure of that Policy. So the two are related by Opinion which may differ on any given day depending on the audience who are polled and the personal Vagaries of the answers recieved. Opinion polls are notoriously unreliable as a Guage of the true public opinion and should always be considered flawed.

Answer 4

Although of the choices presented A is the closest one, the real answer should be
E. none of the above

Public policy is (ideally) created by competent individual versed in the matter, while public opinion is a condensed version of total public ignorance in the matter.

Answer 5

I think A is the right answer.

Accuracy of a poll eepends on how the polling is conducted... who is asked? How is the question phrased? What is the sample size? Etc...

Answer 6

A.
Polling methods can be so easily biased by the researchers, or inadvertently by inconsistent ratios of local-to-national beliefs.

Answer 7

a