Editor's Note

The masthead for this, the first issue of the 70^th year of publicationof Public Opinion Quarterly, lists some new members of the journal’sAdvisory and Editorial Boards. I want to welcome these scholarsof public opinion to the POQ family. Along with continuing membersof the boards, they perform essential roles in the operationof the journal, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their     

THE OPINION-POLICY NEXUS IN GERMANY

This article analyzes the previously unresearched relationshipbetween mass public opinion and public policy in contemporaryWest Germany. By studying approximately 150 cases over the lastdecade, the nature of German democracy is revealed in relationto the overall consistency between majority preferences andgovernment action. The opinion-policy nexus is explored in regardto the impact of issue saliency, landslide majorities, differentcategories of issues (e.g., redistributive, foreign policy),and the partisan composition of the government (i.e., SocialD emocratic vs. Christian Democratic). In addition, there isa cross-national comparison of results for West Germany withthe author's previous research on opinion and policy in theUnited States, Britain, and France. The findings indicate that(like other nations studied) public opinion and public policyin Germany are inconsistent in a majority of instances and that(unlike Britain or France) the partisan composition of the governmentdoes not matter vis-à-vis the degree of policy-opinioncongruence.     

DO OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS MEASURE "SALIENT" ISSUES?

Closed-ended questions dominate most interview schedules. Yetthe almost exclusive use of this form did not arise becauseopen-ended questions, its major competitor, proved to be weakindicators of public opinion. Instead, responses from open-endedquestions proved more difficult and expensive to code and analyzethan those from closed-ended questions. Although such practicalconcerns are important, the real task of survey researchersis to measure public opinion accurately. Using an experimentaldesign, this article tests whether open-ended questions measurethe important concerns of respondents—one of the long-claimedadvantages of this format. The results, on balance, show thatopen-ended comments reflect such concerns, suggesting that pollstersmay want to include more of these questions in their surveysof public opinion.     

Editor's Note

Each Fall issue of Public Opinion Quarterly     

THE DECLINE OF OVER-TIME COMPARABILITY IN THE NATIONAL ELECTION STUDIES

The National Election Studies conducted by the University ofMichigan Survey Research Center and Center for Political Studiesprovide the best data set for studying the political attitudesand behavior of the American electorate. The American NationalElection Studies Data Sourcebook, which complies NES surveyresults between 1952 and 1978, demonstrates the extent to whichthese surveys facilitate over-time analysis. This article usesthe Sourcebook as a baseline and shows that there has been asubstantial decline in the over-time comparability of itemsmeasuring public policy preferences and of items measuring supportfor the political system.     

Testing the Permanence of the Permanent Campaign: An Analysis of Presidential Polling Expenditures, 1977 2002

Many presidential observers argue that the modern White Houseis the site of more-or-less permanent campaigning. In a recentPOQ piece, Murray and Howard (2002) [Public Opinion Quarterly66:527–558] explore one indicator of the "permanent campaign,"the extent to which Presidents Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush,and Clinton commissioned independent opinion polls and focusgroups to assist in policymaking and political maneuvering.Murray and Howard suggest that while a sophisticated pollingoperation has been institutionalized in the White House, thereis substantial variation in how much a president uses this operation.In this article, we model presidential polling expendituresover time using monthly figures. We find that presidents donot vary significantly in the average amount spent per monthon polls. There are, however, two recurring patterns of variationwithin presidential administrations: Presidents tend to spendsignificantly more on internal polling during the most intensemonths of a presidential reelection campaign; and polling expendituresincrease over the course of each presidential term. These findingssuggest that there are common forces (e.g., elections, naturaldecline in support) that have driven all presidents since Fordto poll.     

Editor's Note

This issue inaugurates AAPOR’s relationship with OxfordUniversity Press as publisher of Public Opinion Quarterly. During2003,     

GALLUP AND FORTUNE POLLS

This section contains a compilation, topically arranged, ofpoll results released by the American Institute of Public Opinion,by Fortune, and by the Canadian Institute of Public Opinion.The AIPO results cover the period from October through December1941. (Previous aipo questions were reported in the July 1938,October 1939, and all subsequent issues of the QUARTERLY.) TheFortune questions are those which appeared in the October andDecember issues of the magazine, together with those taken fromthe Fortune Management Poll which appeared in the November issue.(Previous Fortune questions were reported in the March 1940and all subsequent issues of the QUARTERLY.) Releases from theCanadian Institute of Public Opinion are included for the firsttime. (The first cn>o report was issued November 29, 1941.) Under each topic, all of the Institute data are given in chronologicalorder, then all of theFortune material, also in chronologicalsequence. Dates appearing in connection with AIPO questionsare those carried in the date lines of Institute releases tosubscribing newspapers; dates following Fortune questions indicatethe issue of the magazine in which the information appeared.Institute questions are designated by AIPO; Fortune questionsby FOR; "DK" stands for "don't know"; "no op." for "no opinion." In considering these poll data, the reader should bear in mindcertain salient points of reference set forth on pages 75 and76 of the March 1940 issue of the QUARTERLY. The QUARTERLY wishesto express its appreciation to George Gallup and the AmericanInstitute of Public Opinion and to the editors of Fortune andElmo Roper for their cooperation in making these survey resultsavailable in convenient form to other students of public opinion.     

Editor's Note

Readers of Public Opinion Quarterly know that a basic principleof scientific inquiry is transparency. Confidence in researchfindings increases to the degree that the research communityis able to assess the     

Innovators' Award (Blumenthal and Franklin)

The American Association for Public Opinion Research Presentsthe 2007 WARREN J. MITOFSKY INNOVATORS AWARD to Mark Blumenthaland Charles Franklin For Pollster.com Modern day public opinion polling in the United States has come     

THE IMPACT OF OWI ON BROADCASTING

A MARKED difference between the public opinion situation facinginformation specialists in this war and that in 1917 is thefact that during the last twenty-five years radio has come ofage. Never before have governments had available for use suchan important instrument of propaganda. Has the OWI taken fulladvantage of its potentialities? Mr. Landry was asked to appraiseAmerica's use of this weapon since Pearl Harbor. For ten years the author has been observing American radio fromthe platform of the radio editorship of Variety. He has listenedto and analyzed thousands of radio broadcasts. At present heis director of program writing for CBS and also a member ofthe Writers War Board.     

The Public Opinion Research Correspondent

This essay outlines a contract concluded by the leading Germannewspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and the Allensbach Institutfür Demoskopie which breaks new ground in journalism bycreating the position of the public opinion research correspondent.     

TRENDS IN POLITICAL TOLERANCE

Some researchers find a substantial increase in political tolerancesince the 1950s, while others find the increase to be "illusory"—thepublic is more tolerant now of leftists, but has simply foundother targets on which to vent its intolerance. Reanalysis andthe addition of more extensive trend data from 1940 to 1985suggest that the shift does seem primarily to reflect increasedtolerance of leftists, but that the public has not found othergroups to be intolerant of. Measured tolerance has fluctuatedgreatly over the period, reflecting mainly changes in perceptionsof threat from putatively subversive groups, especially domesticCommunists. Also, the public's grasp of, and selfinterestedconcern about, civil liberties seems so minimal that one mightargue not that the public is substantially tolerant or intolerant,but that it has no really tangibly measurable "attitude" onthe subject one way or the other.     

Correction to "The Polls: Environmental Protection"

In "The Polls: Environmental Protection" (POQ 50 (2):273) thefollowing figures are the correct ones: NORC-GSS, 1985, Toomuch: 8%, Dk: 4%; Roper, 1983, Too far: 14%.     

THE RISE OF PRESIDENTIAL POLLING THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This article traces the institutional development of presidentialpolling of public opinion. We suggest that Kennedy, Johnson,and especially Nixon developed the institution of the presidencyto include a "public opinion apparatus"—an operation thatwas centralized in the White House and devoted to assemblingpublic opinion data and conducting extensive public relationsactivities. According to interviews with former officials andarchival records, this apparatus had its roots in Kennedy's1960 presidential campaign, but during the Johnson and Nixonpresidencies it developed into a regular and enduring institutionfor connecting presidential activity with public opinion.     

News Framing and Cueing of Issue Regimes: Explaining Clinton's Public Approval in Spite of Scandal

During the period of exceedingly critical news coverage surroundingthe Monica Lewinsky debacle, President Bill Clinton's job approvalratings were at some of the highest levels they reached duringhis tenure in office. Given this public response, many pollsters,pundits, and scholars argued that news coverage of the scandalmust have been largely irrelevant to the public. Our view countersthese claims by advancing a theory that recognizes that citizens'political preferences are influenced substantially by framesand cues provided by news media. To test our ideas, we drawupon three types of data, all from January 1993 to March 1999:(a) a longitudinal content analysis of major news media, (b)a time-trend of opinion polls on presidential job approval,and (c) monthly estimates of real disposable personal income,seasonally adjusted. Analyses reveal that news media emphasisupon and framing of certain issue regimes—to the framingof the scandal in terms of the strategic motives of conservativeelites.