II political opinion

“Political opinion” is a convenient term for referring to the context of authoritative decision, governmental and nongovernmental, in which persons in petitions of discretionary authority anticipate or respond to estimates of the community’s demands, expectations, or requirements. As the sampie survey and other instruments of social science research add precision to the concept of public opinion—defined as the distribution of personal opinions on public objects in the population outside the government—it becomes increasingly apparent that the opinion process is not identical with or completely determinative of the judgments of persons in a position to formulate and shape public policy. The concept of political opinion is thus a shorthand expression for the relation or sets of relations between the opinion-forming and policy-making processes in society. In empirical terms, it leads to the following question: which opinions and views, held by which persons outside the government, are heeded by which persons who make authoritative policy decisions? Philosophically, it also raises the question of meaning: what function does public opinion play in the political process? Public opinion is sometimes considered to be a sanction (legitimizing symbol), sometimes an instrument (data), and sometimes a generative force (directive and limit) in the policy process. Clearly, then, normative assertions about “government by public opinion” do not accurately describe the processes by which opinions are actually utilized by the makers of public policy.

Opinion in the public context

In order to understand the many ways in which public opinion actually functions in the political process, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of “opinion” and “public.” “Opinion” includes the whole range of personal and private sentiments, beliefs, and systematic views, felt and expressed, rational and nonrational, that both affect the legitimacy and stability of the social order and political system and condition the feasibility and acceptability of public policies. In a political setting, the relevant criterion is not the truth or falsity or the Tightness or wrongness of opinions but their significance for the electoral success or failure of officeholders and candidates, for the degree of popular support for existing and proposed policies aimed at the security and prosperity of the community, and ultimately for the viability of the constitutional and political system.

Insofar as opinions are expressed, it is useful to distinguish two categories of opinion statements:

(1) those of preference, which include expressions of individual feeling, conviction, and value; and

(2) those of fact, which purport to describe transpersonal reality in objective terms of verifiable evidence. The important characteristic of opinion statements, as distinct from postulates of knowledge, mystical or religious faith, and matters of belief beyond discussion (e.g., incest), is that they are recognized as expressing controversial, conflicting ideas, capable of being accepted by rational minds, and hence are appropriate for discussion among individuals and groups. Discussion can lead to agreement and can settle differences of opinion; only violence, authority, or an appeal to a metaphysical or a divine source can resolve differences in objects of faith and belief, which are literally nondebatable and thus fall outside the sphere of opinion.

There is a notable tradition in the history of normative thought about the relation of the public and the private in matters of opinion. Milton’s Areopagitica, Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, and Mill’s On Liberty are classic statements of the moral and political problems posed by the personal freedoms of religious belief, thought, and expression; by a press that is not owned or controlled by the government; and by the respective rights of the majority and of minorities.

Through most of the nineteenth century the dominant tradition assumed that the public sphere was defined by the legally coercive acts of government officials acting in the name of the monarch or representing the people organized as a political community. The work of Marx, James, and Freud, coupled with the rise of the “culture” concept in anthropology, shifted the focus of attention to the economic and social-psychological determinants of opinion, almost to the point of obliterating the distinction between “public” and “private.” Some writers treated the public and political aspects of opinion as logical derivatives of class or status ideologies; others, as by-products of the personality-forming processes by which individuals are adjusted to society. The term “public” was given the sense of “interpersonal relations.” For example, Charles Cooley saw public opinion as the product of social communication and reciprocal influence; John Dewey, as the consequences of interpersonal acts upon persons other than those directly involved in transactions. But these concepts turned out to be virtually identical with the notion “group,” measured by “the extent and complexity of interpersonal relations among the members of specified aggregates, …which under specified conditions exhibit organization of varying kinds and degrees” (Lass-well & Kaplan 1950). Hence “public” had to be differentiated by specifying the requirement of a more inclusive consensus, within which various opinion aggregates could coexist.

These theoretical developments emphasized the roots of public opinion in private and group experience and demonstrated the futility of absolute differentiations between “individual,” “group,” and “public.” However, the conception of the public as a simple extension of interpersonal contact and communication remains unsatisfactory. First, it is not clear that an opinion consensus is a necessary or sufficient condition for a public to exist. Second, the problem of coercion is ignored. Finally, the linkages and adjustments connecting group opinions with the formulation of public policy are vaguely referred to under the heading “pressures” or “compromise.” Models of the political process that explicitly recognize the ambiguous relation between conflicting opinion preferences and actual policy decisions are still required.