Encyclopedia of Sociology Vol

who have experienced more prejudice and discrimination than most other whites in American society, where they constitute less than 2 percent of the population, composed the largest group of whites in the movement. In the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), one of the leading mass civil rights protest organizations, almost one-half of the white participants identified themselves as Jewish or as secularists whose parents were Jewish (Bell 1968).

The methods employed by protest participants and leaders tend to reflect a lack of institutionalized power. When such institutionalized power is available, it can be exercised to redress grievances without resorting to mass protests. Within democratic political processes in the United States and in other democratic societies much organized protest on such issues as trade policies, road construction and placement, and taxation can be viewed in more normative, adaptive terms.

When such normative activities do not result in a resolution of grievances, the potential for a protest movement increases. In such a context, legitimized guarantees of the right to protest, as embedded in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of the right to assemble and petition for redress of grievances, do not preclude protest strategies that go beyond legal or normative boundaries of protest behavior.

Methods of protest are related to prospects of success and levels of frustration. When a protest movement or a countermovement has broad public support and is likely to receive a positive response from targeted authorities, protest activities are likely to be peaceful and accepted by such authorities. Such is the case with pro-choice protest on the abortion issue; protest for clean air; and protest in support of Christian, Jewish, and other minority religious status groups in the Soviet Union. All these protest activities have relatively broad American support, even when they experience a minority activist opposition.

A variety of nonlegitimate strategies are used when protest movements address issues and involve participants with relatively little initial public support and active opposition. One such nonlegitimate strategy is Ghandi’s nonviolent protest confrontation with British authorities in India. Adapted by Martin Luther King, Jr., and most other black civil rights protest leaders in the 1950s and early 1960s, the strategy of nonviolence was

designed to call general public attention in a nonthreatening manner to perceived injustices experienced by blacks. With such techniques as sitins at racially segregated lunch counters and boycotts of segregated public buses, this nonviolent method generated conflict by breaking down established social practices. The aim of such nonviolent methods is to advance conflict resolution by negotiating a change in practices that produced the protest. A particularly famous case is the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, which was one of several major precipitants of the national black-led civil rights movement.

Other, violent forms of protest include both planned strategies and unplanned spontaneous crowd action. In either case such activity tends to be perceived by authorities and their supporters as disorderly and lawless mob behavior. Masses of protest participants are likely to be drawn to violent action when the general perception, or emerging norm (Turner and Killian 1986, pp. 21–25), develops that redress of felt grievances is believed to be unattainable either in normal conditions before protest activation or by peaceful means. The history of violent protest is extensive in many societies, as exemplified by the forcible occupation of farms and fields by landless French peasants in the eighteenth century, American attacks on British possessions and military posts prior to the Declaration of Independence, and bread riots by Russian urban dwellers in World War I. The particular centuries-long history of violent protest movements in American society was documented in context of the urban race riots and anti–Viet- nam War protest in the 1960s by the presidentially appointed National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence in the United States (Graham and Gurr 1969).

Violent protests usually concern specific issues such as taxes, conscription into the military, and food shortages, issues that are confined to particular situations and times. Although these types of protest do not evolve into major social movements, they may have severe and immediate consequences. In 1863, for instance, during the Civil War, Irish Catholics protested what they perceived as the unfair nature of the military draft in New York City. This protest left several hundred dead. Likewise, many college students in the late 1960s and the early 1970s revolted against the draft during the unpopular Vietnam War, and the

results included loss of student lives at Kent State University.

Unplanned violence may also be a form of protest. As reported by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and other research on over two dozen urban racial riots in the 1960s in the United States, these riots, which resulted in over a hundred deaths and over $100 million in property damage, were disorganized extensions of the black civil rights movement. These violent events closely fit Davie’s J-curve thesis (1974), which argues that rising expectations, such as those generated by legal successes in mid-1960s by the black civil rights movement, were frustrated by the declining urban ghetto environments and growing Vietnam War tensions, both of which were related to the fact that large numbers of blacks were being drafted while most white college students were exempted.

Overall, protest movements are more frequent in societies that legitimize the right of protest. In such societies, social conflict generated by protest movements is often functional in resolving conflict over issues between challenging and target groups (Coser 1956). Still, urban and campus riots of the 1960s illustrate that formal rights of protest do not deter democratic authorities and their public supporters from responding with police force or from beginning a countermovement. Authoritarian societies may experience fewer protest movements, but when they do occur, such movements are far more likely to be intense and to have the potential for massive social movements designed to transform the society. This could be seen in widely disparate societies, including most eastern European nations and the Soviet Union, El Salvador, Nicaragua, South Africa, Iran, and mainland China.

CONSEQUENCES OF PROTEST

MOVEMENTS

Given the long and continuing history of protest movements, there has been growing interest in the long-term consequences of such movements. Some assessments concentrate on historical, comparative analysis such as Snyder and Tilly’s analysis (1972) of French collective violence in response to government-sponsored repression between 1830 and 1968, or Bohstedt and Williams’s analysis

(1988) of the diffusion of riotous protests in Devonshire, England, between 1766 and 1801. Other studies of long-term consequences make empirical assessments of the aftermath of more contemporary protest movements. Examples include Gordon’s community-based assessment (1983) of black and white leadership accommodations in the decade following the Detroit race riots of 1967 and Morris’s assessment (1980) of the decade-long impact on national public values of the environmental movement of the late 1960s.

The need for more shortand long-term assessment of the consequences of protest movements is evident in reviews of past movements. William Gamson’s consideration of fifty-three protest movements in the United States between the 1830s and 1930s illustrates the need. Gamson categorized each movement’s own specific goals in one of four ways: coopted, preempted, full response success, and collapsed failure (Gamson 1990, pp. 145–453). Gamson assessed each protest movement’s success in achieving its goals during its own period of organized activity. For instance, Gamson assessed such groups as the German American Fund (1936–1943), the American Proportional Representation League (1893–1932), and the Dairyman’s League (1907–1920).

Of the fifty-three identified protest movements, twenty-two, the largest single proportion, were categorized as being collapsed failures, twenty as achieving full response success, six as being preempted, and five as being coopted. Protest movements categorized as collapsed failures and full response successes demonstrate the need for assessment of protest movements long beyond their activist periods. Listed under collapsed failures were major long-term successful movements including the abolitionist North Carolina Manumission Society (1816–1834) and the American Anti-Slavery Society (1833–1840). In contrast, among full response success movements was the American Committee for the Outlawry of War (1921–1929), a major force in the achievement of the international Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which outlawed war between nations, a short-lived success that for at least most of the rest of the twentieth century proved a grand failure.

Successful or unsuccessful in the short or the long term, protest movements are periodically a part of social change at local, national, and global

levels and in situational, institutional, and crosscultural contexts. In the United States and other modern mass urban societies, the long-term trend has been for protest movements to become more professionalized with increased mobilization of resources to more effectively challenge entrenched interests (Tilly 1978). Modern communication systems, global economic interdependence, and economical movement of masses of people over great distances assures that protest movements of the future will increasingly be characterized by a combination of ideas, people, and organization across all these areas of social life.

In contemporary terms, the historical end of the global Cold War at the end of the twentieth century with the collapse of the Soviet Union generated a basis for increased localized protest movements. This was initially evident in the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence in eastern European societies and within Russia itself. On the eve of the twenty-first century, evidence of this broadening localized protest activism was to be seen in many societies as exemplified by studentled protests in Indonesia, Chiapas Indian revitalization protests in Mexico, the Quebec separatist movement in Canada, the Queens’ Borough protest to separate from New York City in the United States, and many others. In this context, the supply of localized protest issues is likely to proliferate. At the same time, some issues—such as protests associated with such transnational issues involving the environment and health—may touch upon many localized issues that coalesce into becoming national and global protest activities. Given massive economic, political, and social change forces in modern society and the potential for protest movements to directly affect the lives of many people, the concern of research specialists and publics with such movements can be expected to continue and to increase.

(SEE ALSO: Segregation and Desegregation; Social Movements; Student Movements)

Devonshire.’’ Journal of Interdisciplinary History

19(1):1–24.

Coser, Lewis 1956 The Functions of Social Conflict. New York: Free Press.

Davies, James C. 1974 ‘‘The J-Curve and Power Struggle Theories of Collective Violence.’’ American Sociological Review 39:607–612.

Fogelson, Robert 1971 Violence as Protest: A Study of Riots. New York: Anchor.

Gamson, William A. 1990 The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey.

Glazer, Nathan 1989 Affirmative Discrimination. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Gordon, Leonard 1983 ‘‘Aftermath of a Race Riot: The Emergent Norm Process among Black and White Community Leaders.’’ Sociological Perspectives 26:115– 135.

Graham, Hugh D., and Ted Gurr (eds.) 1969 The History of Violence in America: Report of the National Commission on the Causes and Preventions of Violence. New York: Bantam.

Lipset, Seymour M. 1971 Rebellion in the University. Boston: Little, Brown.

Lorentz, Friedrich 1935 The Cassubian Civilization. Lon-

don: Faber and Faber.

Morris, Aldon D. 1984 The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change. New York: Free Press.

Morris, Denton 1980 ‘‘The Soft Cutting Edge of Environmentalism: Why and How the Appropriate Technology Notion Is Changing the Movement.’’

Natural Resources Journal 20:275–298.

Mueller, Carol, and Charles Judd 1981 ‘‘Belief Consequences and Belief Constraint.’’ Social Forces 60:182–187.

Shirer, William 1960 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Smelser, Neil J. 1962 Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press.

Snyder, David, and Charles Tilly 1972 ‘‘Hardship and Collective Violence in France: 1830 to 1960.’’ American Sociological Review 37:520–532.

Tilly, Charles 1978 From Mobilization to Rebellion. New York: McGraw-Hill.

REFERENCES

Bell, Inge Powell 1968 CORE and the Strategy of NonViolence. New York: Random House.

Bohstedt, John, and Dale E. Williams 1988 ‘‘The Diffusion of Riots: The Patterns of 1966, 1795, and 1801 in

Turner, Ralph, and Lewis M. Killian 1986 Collective Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Wilson, William J. 1987 The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Gamson, William A. 1990 The Strategy of Social Protest.

Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey.

Tilly, Charles 1978 From Mobilization to Rebellion. New York: McGraw Hill.

LEONARD GORDON

potential validity of contrary views. Issues are settled by discussion and bargaining. Those who pay at least some attention and are ready to take sides make up a public. It expands in size as an issue heats up, only to contract again as the focus shifts to new problems. There are, in fact, as many publics as there are issues.

PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion is characterized, on the one hand, by its form as elementary collective behavior (Blumer 1972) and, on the other, by its functions as a means of social control (Ross 1901). It comes into play in situations that are problematical or normatively ambiguous in one or more of several senses: The situation is novel and unprecedented, so that established ways of coping no longer prove adequate, people actively disagree over which of several conventionally acceptable practices should apply, or the conventions themselves have come under serious challenge by a dissident group. In the extreme case, controversy over what should be done can heat up to a point where order gives way to violent group conflict.

Interest in public opinion is historically linked to the rise of popular government. Although rulers have always had to display some minimum sensitivity to the needs and demands of their subjects, they felt little need, unlike most contemporary governments that must face voters in mandated elections, to anticipate their constituents’ reactions to events that were yet to occur or to policies still to be implemented. But public opinion operates equally outside the relationship between citizens and the state. Its influence is felt throughout civil society, where, on many matters, including personal taste in dress, music, and house furnishings, people remain sensitive to the changing opinions of peers and neighbors. They court approval by showing themselves in step with the times.

Opinions have behind them neither the sanctity of tradition nor the sanctions of law. They derive their force from agreement, which is more tenuous than either of these. People do change their minds. Moreover, to label something as ‘‘opinion’’ implies a certain willingness to acknowledge the

Social control through public opinion functions in subtle ways. All but the most intransigent partisans will recognize when an issue is settled to a point where further debate becomes not only superfluous but possibly disruptive of an underlying consensus. There are times when the need to display unity, perhaps in coping with a crisis, or moral fervor, whipped up in crusades against internal enemies, may unduly narrow the range of public discourse. Dissidents come under pressure to conform, at least outwardly, but not as completely as in the regimes that suppress public opinion by seeking control over all conversational channels through which ideologically deviant tendencies could spread.

Studies of public opinion have to contend with a broad range of beliefs. Located at one extreme are beliefs anchored in longstanding allegiances; at the other, the often fluctuating ‘‘gut’’ responses to whatever is current. The more general ideas that underlie the legitimacy of the political system have the greatest stability. They build on childhood experiences within the family, where children tend to adopt the views of their parents. Then, as the children become adults, these early beliefs are elaborated and modified in sustained contact with other major institutions, like school and church, and also (especially during major catastrophes affecting their country or its leaders) by the news media (Renshaw 1977). The content of the political culture from which opinions are derived differs from milieu to milieu.

Endemic cleavages related to position in social structure and in historical time are highlighted during controversies. Hence, public opinion often divides in predictable ways—by region, race, religion, ethnicity, class background, educational attainment, and so forth. If the differences in experience are sharp enough and each side raises nondebatable demands, public discourse can escalate to a point where the polity splits apart into two irreconcilable camps. Instead of reaching agreement, the more powerful group imposes its will.

Acquiescence does not qualify as rule by public opinion.

In the center of early sociological study of public opinion has been the question of competence. Analysts have sought to distinguish conceptually between the reasoned opinions developed in discussion and the clamor of a feared ‘‘mob’’ acting under the sway of emotion. Two works, one in Germany and one in America, coincidentally published the same year, analyzed the problem in structural terms.

Tönnies (1922) pointed to the press and to associations that usurped for themselves the role of articulating public opinion. He would have been even more critical of the public relations industry that has flourished since. For Lippmann (1922) there was a still more fundamental obstacle. He rejected as a false ideal the notion that ordinary citizens—even the most well-educated—had the time and incentive to acquire the expertise to grasp the complex problems of the day in the detail necessary to direct the course of public policy. Drawing on a wide range of literature, he showed how the public perceived the world through the stereotypes fed them by the press. This meant, he argued, that whenever the public attempted to intervene in the course of events, it inevitably did so as the dupe or unconscious ally of elite interests. Its role was properly limited to identifying the problem areas in need of remedial action and to deciding which party, institution, or agency should be entrusted with the solution. But the public was a potentially effective ‘‘reserve force’’ most effectively mobilized in support of the procedural norms of democracy. Contemporary contractualists, like Buchanan and Congleton (1998), have come to share Lippmann’s emphasis on generalized procedures about which near unanimity is more easily achieved than about policies that inevitably produce winners and losers.

The list of social scientists pointing from different perspectives to the limits of ‘‘rule by public opinion’’ under modern conditions includes Mannheim (1940), Schumpeter (1942), Schattschneider (1960), Bogart (1972), and Ginsberg (1986). An all-too-obvious gap between the expectation of an informed citizenry put forward by democratic theory and the discomforting reality revealed by systematic survey interviewing is identified by Neuman (1986) as the ‘‘paradox of mass

politics.’’ Where pluralists see a public made up of many competing interests, each with its own leadership, Neuman discriminates among three levels of competence: an uncomfortably tiny percentage of citizens with some input into policy; uninterested and inactive know-nothings, who make up roughly one-fifth of the potential electorate; and a large middle mass whose members, if they vote, do so largely out of a sense of duty but with only a very limited understanding of the issues their vote is meant to decide. This discrepancy from the ideal, apparent in many polls on specific issues, can hardly be attributed to flaws in the method by which public opinion is ascertained.

PUBLIC OPINION POLLING

There are nevertheless some real questions about the momentary numerical majorities obtained in an opinion poll as a valid measure of public opinion. For one thing, polls vary in quality. How closely any particular poll reflects the distribution of opinion within a larger population hinges on three general factors: (1) who is interviewed, (2) the situation in which the interview takes place, and (3) the questions asked. Insofar as elections also provide a public record of ‘‘opinion,’’ the utility of polls as a research tool can be tested against the actual vote count.

Two fiascoes in polling history have been painstakingly diagnosed. Never again will we see anything like the wildly incorrect 1936 forecast by the Literary Digest that Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won reelection by a landslide, would be voted out of office. It was based on 2.3 million returns from over 10 million straw ballots mailed to names on automobile registration lists and in telephone books. Poll takers learned the hard way that, especially when respondents are self-selected, sheer numbers do not guarantee accuracy. For one thing, the well-to-do, who owned cars and lived in homes with telephones, were somewhat less supportive of Roosevelt and his New Deal than those too poor to have either or both such conveniences. A second, actually more important, source of bias was selfselection; Republicans were more strongly motivated than Democrats to mail in their straw ballot as a protest against the party in power.

When in 1948 the pollsters, despite more rigorous sampling and face-to-face interviews,

wrongly predicted the defeat of incumbent President Harry Truman, this became the occasion for one of the most extensive inquiries into polling practices by a committee of the Social Science Research Council (Mosteller et al. 1949). Its report stressed the importance of random selection, in which every voter stands the same chance of being contacted, an objective often difficult to implement. Polling techniques have come a long way since and errors of such magnitude have not reoccurred. But, as shown by an investigation by Crespi (1988) of the factors associated with accurate prediction in 430 preelection polls during the 1980s, the extra effort invested in callbacks still pays off in greater accuracy. Persons missed because they are hard to reach or because they refuse to answer often differ from the rest in ways difficult to estimate.

As to the interview situation, answering the questions of a poll taker is hardly the same as casting a vote, all the more so when the election is months away. The large margins by which Truman had been trailing in the early fall of 1948 caused several pollsters to cease polling weeks before voting day. Thus, they never registered the strong Democratic rally taking place toward the end of the campaign. Another problem is determining how firm respondents are in their convictions and who will actually vote on election day. Despite refined techniques to ferret out likely nonvoters, predicting the outcome of a low-turnout election with little-known candidates and in referendums on questions beyond the understanding of many voters can be hazardous.

Public opinion research covers much more than elections, where the ‘‘issue’’ boils down to a clear split between parties, candidates, or those for or against a measure on the ballot. Issues come and go, and people do not necessarily have preconstructed views on everything about which polls may ask but tend to construct their answers in an ad hoc manner from information that, at the moment, strikes them as salient (Zaller 1992). Just as pollster have learned to omit from their tabulations of preelection surveys the likely nonvoters, so various ‘‘filters’’ are used to screen out persons who are generally unconcerned about politics, have given the particular subject little thought, and may not have even been aware of it except for the questions put to them. To avoid eliciting

‘‘nonattitudes,’’ as responses from such persons are called, they should be asked no further questions about the matter. This still leaves those reluctant to admit their unfamiliarity or lack of concern. One survey that deliberately inserted a question about a nonexistent bill allegedly under consideration by Congress had significant minorities respond that they had heard of it, with some even willing to fabricate an opinion about it.

Insofar as responses depend on how a question is phrased, different polls can provide dramatically different readings of where the public stands. Various polls on impeachment during Watergate, all about the same time, recorded levels of support ranging from a high of 53 percent on a question with the condition ‘‘if it were ‘‘decided that President Nixon was involved in the coverup’’ attached to a low of 10 percent on a question that offered resignation as an alternative to impeachment. Similarly, after Gallup modified its original question, which had coupled ‘‘impeachment and removal from office,’’ by first explaining impeachment and then asking, ‘‘Given the various charges brought against the president, do you think impeachment charges should be brought against him or not?’’ support for impeachment jumped from 37 to 53 percent.

Views on many subjects are too nuanced to be caught in response to a single question. Few people are absolutists on most issues. On abortion, a highly contentious issue, it is not just being ‘‘pro choice’’ or ‘‘pro life’’ in all situations. One can deny that abortion is a constitutional right and still allow it under certain circumstances—when conception has resulted from rape or when abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother. Some legal restrictions are likewise acceptable for supporters of Roe v. Wade. Similar distinctions are called for in polling on ‘‘affirmative action,’’ a term that stands for a welter of different policies. Explicit preferences, even as a redress for past discrimination, are endorsed by no more than a minority, but outreach programs to locate qualified minorities and/or women enjoy wide support. To correctly assess what is on people’s mind requires a series of probing questions.

Nor do apparent majorities always speak as clearly as the student of public opinion would like. In a 1971 poll, a time when concern over American

involvement in Vietnam was higher than any other issue on the public agenda, two out of three respondents answered the question, ‘‘Do you favor or oppose the withdrawal of all American troops from Vietnam by the end of the year?’’ by declaring themselves in favor of withdrawal. But on another question in the same survey, about withdrawing all troops ‘‘regardless of how the war was going,’’ these same respondents split with a plurality of 44 percent against and only 41 percent still for withdrawal. Does this 25-point difference between the 66 percent in favor of withdrawing on the first question and the 41 percent on the second identify a group ready to take back an off-the-cuff answer when reminded of the possible consequences of such a move? Or were those giving a ‘‘consistent’’ response confident that South Vietnam would not fall? There is still a third possibility: A lot of people no longer cared whether or not America was forced to withdraw in defeat. An undetermined number among them may, in fact, have welcomed such an outcome.

Sometimes the public does indeed hold views that seem contradictory, but the logic people follow may differ from that of the analyst, as it did during Vietnam, when polls were recording, at one and the same time, majorities in support of both immediate withdrawal and a stepped-up air war on the North. Others who considered American intervention in Vietnam a mistake still spoke out in favor of President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policy. Nor, for that matter, were self-styled ‘‘doves’’ necessarily in sympathy with student protests against the war.

For all their potential pitfalls, polls are one of the best ways for political leaders to maintain contact with their increasingly large and diverse constituencies—a more reliable reading for sure than such alternative indicators of public opinion as letters, telegrams, phone calls, and petitions to political leaders, which may reflect nothing more than the effort of a well-organized interest group. Yet even minorities, if implacable enough, should not always be ignored. A rise in the number who refuse draft calls or desert from the armed forces; a rise in certain crimes; and an increase in demonstrations, strikes, and other forms of protest are important clues, not necessarily to general opinion but at least to the unwillingness of the groups most affected by some problem to settle for the

status quo (Tilly 1978). They signal problems or injustice that call for recognition by the rest of society.

DYNAMICS OF PUBLIC OPINION

Changes in the basic attitudes that underlie public opinion usually occur slowly, partly through replacement and partly through the diffusion of new experience. Differential birth rates, migration, social mobility, and the succession of generations are processes that disturb the existing balance without any change on the individual level and despite evidence of significant political continuity between parents and offspring. Distinct intergenerational differences are believed to develop in response to certain critical experiences, like the encounter, in early adulthood before one’s outlook has fully crystallized, with general poverty and war, or participation in social struggles (Sigel 1989).

Attitudes on race are a good example of how diffusion and replacement operate in conjunction with each other. Surveys taken over time show a distinct movement toward greater racial tolerance (Schuman and Bobo 1985). All groups moved in the same direction, even if at different speeds. The younger generation showed the way, often with tacit support from sympathetic parents not yet ready themselves to join a radical challenge to segregation. Rising levels of education and the increase in certain kinds of intergroup contact also contributed to the shift, as did mortality among the older, more conservative cohorts. Especially noteworthy is that, in regions where segregationist practices were most firmly entrenched, opinion changed more rapidly than in the rest of the country, once the full force of national public opinion had been brought to bear on them through television. The pervasive coverage the national media gave the campaign for civil rights conveyed to even the most intransigent southerners how the rest of the country viewed their continuing resistance. While issues relating to race continue to divide the polity, the terms in which they are debated were never to be the same again.

The day-to-day shifts in public opinion on matters great and small are even more subject to influence by the media of mass communication. Most of the public is not issue-oriented but reacts

to the general image of presidential performance. ‘‘Good’’ news of any kind tends to bolster that image, with one major exception: a national crisis. Such events typically generate a rally to the flag; critical voices are stilled, at least temporarily, in a show of patriotic unity. Effective political leadership under any condition requires access to the news media.

In their comprehensive review of American policy preferences over a half-century, Page and Shapiro (1992) show that, on thirty-two foreign and forty-eight domestic issues for which there were adequate data, the media coverage explained a large part of the movement of opinion in polls. However, they go on to note that opinions on none of these issues changed very much. The main influence of heightened media coverage, as repeatedly documented by communication research, is to move an issue or a problem into the public sphere, followed by an increase of concern and discussion, which then puts pressure on government to do something. When the press plays up crime, this helps create the impression of a crime wave, just as vivid details about a disaster drive home its magnitude. Serious discussion about the nature, causes, and consequence in the media of what came to be called ‘‘child abuse’’ facilitated its recognition as a social problem calling for intervention (Nelson 1984).

Once there is concern, the issue itself undergoes change. The actions of the principal actors involved in Watergate, as reported by the media, moved the debate away from Nixon’s involvement in the illegal break-in into Democratic headquarters to his obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress—the three counts on which the House Judiciary Committee voted for impeachment (Lang and Lang 1983). A similar kind of shift occurred in the ‘‘sex’’ scandal surrounding Bill Clinton. What began as the exposé of an improper affair with a White House intern was progressively redefined into whether the president had perjured himself and whether this felony, if committed by a president in connection with a civil suit later found without merit, rose to the level of an impeachable offense.

Media power is nevertheless limited. First of all, opinions, once they have crystalized, respond more to actual changes in circumstances than to

media messages. Second, the potential influence of the media varies according what they report about. It is obviously greater when they expose widespread corruption in high places, report on a mishap in foreign relations, or highlight something that hardly anyone would ever know about unless alerted by the news media. Far less dependent on media recognition are inflation, shortages, a severe economic downturn, and other events. Neither they nor specific grievances anchored in shared group experience will go away for mere lack of mention. Third, media managers are less than fully independent. They have to accommodate other actors intent on publicizing only those issues (or aspects of issues) that work in their favor. While competition among the various practitioners of the highly developed art of news management introduce some balance, public discussion, and (indirectly) public opinion do respond to media strategies not so much aimed at persuasion as bent upon seizing the right issues.

PUBLIC OPINION AND POLICY

As to the effects of opinion change, leaders of major institutions, whether elected or not, have proved distinctly sensitive to trends in public opinion. The measure most consistently repeated over the most years is the presidential approval ratings. Most presidents have experienced a gradual slide during their terms in office, which Mueller (1973) attributes to a coalition of all the minorities that, over the years, will have been antagonized by the many decisions a president as the chief executive is forced to make. At least two American presidents have been driven from office by clear evidence of a loss of public support. Lyndon Johnson, with the failure of his Vietnam policy glaringly evident to all, took himself out of the race for reelection, even though as an incumbent president he would have been assured renomination as the standard bearer of his party (Schandler 1977). Public outrage during Watergate forced Richard Nixon to make several concessions and, ultimately, to resign after the Supreme Court forced the release of tapes with the incriminating evidence that made his impeachment and subsequent removal from office a near certainty (Lang and Lang 1983). Twenty-five years later, a president’s high approval, despite his publicly acknowledged wrongdoing, caused Republicans in both houses of Congress, who wanted to

hold him responsible, to frame the issue in the most narrow legal terms lest their moves backfire.

Congress, knowing that public opinion responds to events, sometimes even to the turn of a debate, often moves cautiously on potentially divisive issues. When Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court and Nixon resisted the full exposure of Watergate, legislators were inclined to wait, watching to see which way the public tilted. And when it came to civil rights, major legislation was passed only after mass demonstration and media attention to discriminatory practices had created public concern and support for the principle had reached or exceeded the two-thirds mark. Laws subsequent to the initial pathbreaking legislation could then be enacted without direct pressure from below. But none of these things could have been achieved without effective political leadership responsive to the just demands of an obvious minority, which Johnson, still enjoying the honeymoon bequeathed an incoming president, was able to provide.

The accumulating evidence points to a basic congruence between public opinion on basic issues and legislative action (cf. Monroe 1998; Page and Shapiro 1983). Even the decisions of a judiciary with lifelong tenure are not entirely insulated from the political cross-currents that affect representative institutions. The U.S. Supreme Court, the most august of judicial bodies, as Marshall (1989) concludes, has been an essentially majoritarian institution. Of 142 decisions from the mid-1930s to the mid-1980s for which there existed corresponding opinion data, over four-fifths have been consistent with preferences expressed in polls. The linkage, strongest in times of crisis, reflects more the court’s sensitivity to legislative and executive concerns that incorporate public opinion than direct to public pressure on the judges.

It is on the constitutional rights of dissident minorities that the Supreme Court has most consistently set itself against majority opinion. Other countermajority opinions have either articulated a rising trend, strengthened by the voice of the court, or been modified by later decisions that, in an apparent response to public opinion, carved out exceptions and introduced qualifications to the broad rule laid down in the original case. Public opinion continues to play a role in how

these court decisions are implemented. Following a decade of increasingly liberal attitudes toward abortion, the issue seemed settled once and for all by Roe v. Wade. Though the massive campaign prolifers have mounted since has had little impact nationally, states vary in their laws and practices. The states in which opposition to abortion has been strong have generally adopted more restrictive policies, resulting in lower abortion rates, than states in which the weight of public opinion was to make it a matter of choice (Wetstein 1996).

THE ERA OF POLLS

Elites have always been under some constraints, even in dealing with the more obscure issues typically resolved through specialized networks. Sheer prudence nevertheless commands that appearances be managed. This is done today, more than ever before, on the basis of increasingly accurate information from polls. Experts on polling have become members of the advisory staff not only of candidates for major offices but also of national party organizations. They also work in the White House and are consulted by presidents about proprietary polls which, unlike those sponsored by the media, especially during election season, the public rarely sees. There is little persuasive evidence so far about how the current high volume of polling activity has affected the political process.

One perhaps not very obvious consequence is the dissemination of a view on public opinion as statistics on a set of questions instead of a process to determine of what people will ultimately settle for. The public, too, is somewhat suspicious of polls. A large proportion of those queried on the subject believe that polls have effects and, particularly, that the majorities they record generate bandwagons even though these same people vehemently deny that the polls would have any effect on themselves. Nor has the variety of split-ballot polls and experiments, in which only one of two matched samples is informed about of the majority viewpoint, turned up differences large enough to support what many apparently fear. Noelle-Neumann (1984), in a more elaborate formulation, has shifted the emphasis away from direct bandwagons (i.e., people rushing to join the majority) to more complex sequences of events. She reasons that

people who perceive themselves as being in the minority, even if falsely, are reluctant to speak out against the dominant opinion, thereby creating a spiral of silence through which the apparent majority gains extra strength. Such spirals have no doubt occurred, for example during the repressive era remembered as McCarthyism. But to generalize from this and other instances is to overlook situations in which committed minorities have raised their voices to compensate for what they lack in number. Polls do function as a corrective by reporting on opinions that, although underrepresented in the forums which most public discourse takes place, are too important to ignore.

Polls have other significant consequences insofar as those who rely on them react strategically. They certainly influence the choice of candidates, the platform and program on which a candidate or party stands for election, and the policies an administration pursues. Candidates who can demonstrate electability attract the financial support, endorsements, and media coverage necessary for an effective campaign. Citizens, too, vote strategically whenever they abandon a likely loser in favor of a minimally acceptable second choice. This is what gives a front-runner in the polls the momentum to increase his or her distance from the pack of competitors early in the primary season (Bartels 1988). A strong showing can also have a potential downside: A victory by less than the anticipated margin, even in a small state with low turnout and therefore difficult to predict, has sometimes been read as a defeat. Hence, candidates often work to lower expectations regardless of what their own polls may show.

Polls on the concerns and issue preferences of the electorate allow campaign managers to maximize their candidates’ appeal. Political actors who act rationally, rather than ideologically, will moderate the more doctrinaire positions cherished by their loyal followers, who have no other place to go. According to the spatial model of politics first outlined by Downs (1957), parties and candidates are impelled to move toward the political center to reach out to the still uncommitted. More and more do the modern catch-all parties, competing for an ever-larger share of the electorate, rely on general promises and finely honed advertisements. They differentiate themselves more by the image the party seeks to project than by any clearly defined policies. Practices of this sort are bound to

feed voter cynicism about the political system. One would also expect adverse effect on traditional party loyalties.

Republican leaders who heralded their success in 1994, an off-year election in which they took over both houses of Congress, as an endorsement of the party’s Contract with America, quickly learned about the danger of being taken in by their own campaign slogans. At least their managers must have known that, as late as two weeks before the election, 65 percent of the public polled by the Gallup Organization had not yet even heard of the contract and that, according to another poll just days before the election, only 7 percent of those interviewed said they would be more likely to vote for the Republican candidate for Congress if he or she supported the contract. Acting as if they had a clear mandate, the Republicans in Congress made this their legislative agenda and, when embroiled in a budget dispute with the Democratic president, forced three closedowns of government. President Clinton’s approval ratings rose sharply, and Republicans, who had misread the election results, lost credibility. By the same token, Democratic gains in 1998 plus polls showing clear majorities opposed to impeachment apparently misled the Clinton White House to underestimate the determination of House Republicans to bring down the president. Electoral results are not carbon copies of the public mood.

There is no question that elites are now in a better position than ever before to anticipate the public reaction to whatever they may do. Accurate information is all the more vital when the loosening of ideological bonds has forced an elected leader to engage in a continuous campaign for popularity. Such a leader has good reason to adopt the majority point of view on issues about which the public feels strongly and to save his political capital for other less salient issues, on which views have not yet crystalized. This is where Geer (1996) locates the opportunities for effective leadership. Informed by polls, a president now is in a better position to identify these issues than were presidents in previous eras, several of whom exercised what Geer calls ‘‘leadership by mistake.’’ But although a democratic leader must accede to at least some of the wishes of his followers, failure to lead when possible would amount to more than a missed opportunity; it would be a serious mistake, because it cedes the territory to the opposition,