DELIBERATIVE POLLS: TOWARD IMPROVED MEASURES OF "INFORMED" PUBLIC OPINION?

Abstract

New research techniques have recently been developed to gather measures of public opinion that is better informed or more deliberative than that recorded in typical mass opinion surveys. These techniques include deliberative polls, educational surveys, and citizen planning cells. In view of what they set out to accomplish, what can we say from a scientific perspective about the utility of these methods? How are we to best interpret the data they produce? To address these questions, this paper reviews several of the most prominent and well-developed examples of deliberative or educational polling. We argue two main points. First, these new methods of assessing public opinion must be evaluated in terms of specific quality criteria that apply to different phases and/or participants in the democratic decision making process. Some techniques attempt to maximize several distinct qualities at once, making it difficult to identify specific objectives for evaluating success. Second, at least five important core methodological elements of educational or deliberative polls can be identified, each of which can theoretically alter results. To date, however, data bearing upon the effects of these methodological elements are in limited supply. Lack of knowledge about how method influences individual and collective opinion outcomes thus renders several of these techniques problematic.