Government and Polling: Use and Impact of Polls in the Policy‐Making Process in Switzerland
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(2) . . making’ to supposing ‘that public opinion is simply ratified in government decisions’ (Jacobs and Shapiro , p. ). Furthermore, the hopes and fears on how the results of opinion polls more specifically influence public policy-making ranges from technocratic hopes for more viable and effective policies to the fear of creating a populist style of policy-making or, during election campaigns, unduly influencing voting behavior (Crespi , p. , Brettschneider , Schmidtchen , Verba , Fishkin , Champagne , Beniger , p. , Margolis und Mauser , p. , Peer , pp. ff.). Not only are the findings and interpretations highly disparate, but the focus of research is also rather narrow. First, the focus most often lies on the US context. Second, research on the impact of opinion polls often analyzes the impact with respect to elections rather than government decisions in everyday policy-making. Third, the manner in which poll data are integrated in policymakers’ individual usage and decision-making often remains diffuse, both conceptually and empirically (Heith , p. , Jacobs and Shapiro , p. ). This article, therefore, addresses the question of how, and how often and to what purpose, a non-US government uses poll results. This is done in order to discuss how a different institutional setting—Switzerland in our case—might influence the government’s use of polls. We thereby intend to contribute to the theoretical framework for conceptualizing the process of the use and the impact of polls, and in this regard we propose to integrate theoretical concepts from the information-processing, news value, and policy literature. We then reconstruct the impact of poll results in everyday politics and discuss to what extent the aforementioned hopes and fears are justified. The discussion of these questions is based on the results of a quantitative survey on the use of polls by the Swiss government, and on five exploratory case studies focusing on polls commissioned by the federal and local1 governments in Switzerland. GOVERNMENT AND POLLING IN SWITZERLAND: INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT AND PRACTICE Research on how the Swiss Federal government makes use of polls in everyday politics is almost entirely non-existent. Our project, therefore, started out with a quantitative survey on the frequency of commissioning and using polls by the Swiss government. We began by analyzing the use of polls and survey data by the Federal Council, the collegiate body that constitutes the executive, in 1 One out of the five case studies investigates a poll commissioned by the City of Berne, i.e. a poll commissioned by a government on the community level. This poll became part of our sample because a large part of the necessary information was already provided through another project, dealing with the question of New Public Management and polls..
(3) - the context of the parliamentary sessions of (Hardmeier and Kaspar ). A written questionnaire was then sent to the different units of the federal administration in order to investigate how they make use of opinion polls in everyday politics (Hardmeier and Good ). Overall, the results indicated a rather conservative use of polls. First, representative opinion polls do not play a very important role for the Federal Council when taking a position on projects, propositions, and questions during parliamentary debate. A search in the minutes of the parliamentary debate for the year resulted in only statements made by members of the Federal Council referring to the results of a representative opinion poll. In addition, only in nine out of these statements did the respective member of the Federal Council use the poll results in order to support his own argument (Hardmeier and Kaspar ). Second, the results from the questionnaire sent to the units of the federal administration revealed that the extent to which polls are regularly commissioned is equally modest. Only polls were ordered by distinct units within the two years before mid-. However, this figure is probably too low if we take into account the fact that only percent of the units responded, and the answers provided were just an estimation, not an exact figure (Hardmeier and Good ). Half of these polls were related to issues treated in the pre-parliamentary phase, in other words, they were related to the elaboration of a law by the government before the respective proposition was introduced into parliament. Only one poll involved issues currently being dealt with by parliament, while six of the polls ordered by the administration were related to a direct-democratic decision.2 Finally, five polls were connected to the implementation stage. Third, with respect to the question of how often and from whom the administration received poll results, the data show comparatively weak ties among pollsters and government as well as a rather low degree of formal penetration and institutionalization. None of the responding bureaucrats indicated that they received poll results several times a week and a relative majority received poll results ordered by their administrative unit, other administrative units, or the polling industry less frequently than several times a year. Furthermore, only nine percent of the answering agencies often use poll results for published reports, while percent never rely on such data in their reports. For internal reports within the administration, the figures are slightly higher (Hardmeier and Good , p. ). Overall, these results show that polling by the Swiss executive branch certainly does not reach the extent and degree of institutionalization observed for the 2 The decision process, followed by the implementation stage, can be divided into a pre-parliamentary, a parliamentary, and a popular voting phase. The popular vote is only part of the decision-making process under the condition of an initiative or a referendum..
(4) . . US post-Johnson presidencies—even if the public opinion apparatus is not officially part of the White House (Jacobs and Shapiro , Heith ). With respect to parliamentary debates, references to poll results are also much less frequently made in the Swiss parliament than in the US congress (Hardmeier and Kaspar , Kang personal communication, Traugott ). These differences might be explained through the characteristics of the respective politcal systems. As a result of the composition of the Swiss government, its position and its organization, popularity and leadership polling (Geer ) is less important in Switzerland than in the USA. First, the popularity of a single member of government is not considered an important political factor given that the Federal Council is a collegiate body composed of seven equal members, individually elected by the Federal Assembly with a stable party composition since . In addition, the president of the Federal Council—an office rotating annually among the seven members—does not dispose of the powers often attributed to prime ministers in a parliamentary system, but mainly executes some representative functions in addition to his mandate as one out of seven members of the Federal Council. As a result, polls as popularity ratings are almost non-existent in Switzerland. A second characteristic is that in the USA, polling of the public is most decisive, because a key instrumental goal of the presidency is to maintain public support for policies (Denton and Woodward , p. ). Presidents, instead of relying on party factions in parliament, seek the support of the general public (Eisinger and Brown ). In contrast, the Swiss government seeks first to gain support of, or to find a viable compromise among, the major parties and interest groups, rather than to demonstrate the support of the general public through opinion polling. Laws and decrees of the Federal Assembly or international treaties can be challenged through the optional referendum, which has to be understood as an intervention, or the possibility for a veto, right at the end of the policy formulation and decision-making process (Kriesi , p. ). The outcome of a referendum is always uncertain and the success rate in popular ballots at percent is fairly high (Linder , p. ). The Swiss government, therefore, first seeks a viable compromise among the major parties and interest groups. Such support makes it not only likely to pass a project in parliament, but also helps to avoid a possible referendum. In addition, a viable compromise also contributes to gaining public support in the case of a possible popular vote: the engagement of the government in the referendum campaign is strongly limited by legal norms, while interest groups and parties mobilize the voters through campaigning. For the Swiss government, maintaining or creating public support by polling is, accordingly, not very important. The overall modest institutionalization and use of polling, however, does not automatically mean that polls do not influence policy-making. We should rather assume that for Switzerland polls are being used to some extent and could.
(5) - influence decisions under certain conditions. Therefore, the following analysis investigates how poll results are used by government and how they influence the policy decisions, for example, how they are used to shape the policy-output (Jacobs and Shapiro ). Thus, our analysis focuses on polls commissioned by the government and analyses the commissioning administrative units and the individual policy-makers in particular, in order to reconstruct their use and impact (Heith , p. ). THE CASE STUDIES: THEORETICAL ASSUMPTIONS AND EMPIRICAL PROCEEDINGS TO RECONSTRUCT USE AND IMPACT For theoretical reasons, our research focused on how the administration used the polls they had commissioned, in contrast to using polls commissioned by other actors. The producer-users, in contrast to mere consumer-users, have a very direct influence on the process of conducting the poll. The actor commissioning a poll can decide on the topics covered by a poll, as well as determining at what point in time the poll should take place. Furthermore, the actor can usually decide whether the results will be made public, and the manner in which they will be used or presented. She or he can, therefore, develop communication strategies in order to enhance the spread of certain results or also conceal certain aspects.3 Being responsible for commissioning a poll, therefore, means having considerable control over content, timing and, to a certain extent, over the communicative use of the results of polls, which is certainly important if the results will be used to influence the political agenda and decisions. The results from the written questionnaire mentioned above provided the basis from which to select our case studies. However, our access was limited within the administration because of the lack of freedom of information in the federal administration: we were unable to get access to polls connected to ongoing decision-making processes, as well as to polls conducted in connection with direct-democratic decisions. This limited access will be reflected in the conclusions. The four cases on the federal level in our study were basically the ones to which we had access by taking into account a broad variety of different administrative units and different polling firms.4 These four cases were complemented by a case study of governmental polling on the community level, to which we had direct access to through another research mandate. The five cases can be briefly described as follows. The first included a poll on federal finances, which was commissioned by the communication and press service of the Federal Department of Finance. The motivation for this annual 3. However, under certain circumstances a public actor might also be forced to make results public. Variation in the commissioning administrative units and the polling firms was demanded because an analysis of the quality of the polls was equally part of the case studies. 4.
(6) . . opinion poll is to get to know more about the knowledge and opinions of different societal groups on financial policy issues and to provide an instrument for controlling the Department’s information policy. The second case study dealt with a poll on the regional employment search centers, as well as on measures concerning the labor market in general. This opinion poll was commissioned by a unit within the Department of Economic Affairs. The purpose of the poll was to collect information, in addition to the statistical data available, on the opinion and experiences of unemployed people as well as persons in charge of human resources in private enterprises with respect to these centers. The third case study analyzed a poll on the opinion and knowledge of the Swiss people on questions related to alcohol consumption. The poll was commissioned by the Swiss Alcohol Board in collaboration with the Federal Office of Public Health.5 The goal was, on the one hand, to collect information on the attitudes of people to be used in prevention campaigns, and to provide data for a comparison with future developments because of an upcoming change of taxation policy on alcoholic beverages. The fourth case study dealt with a poll conducted in connection with the STOP-AIDS campaigns, which had been commissioned by the respective service of the Federal Office of Public Health. It analyzed the perceptions and opinions on, as well as the comprehensibility of, the prevention campaign of . This poll had been conducted for other campaigns, both prior to and following our selected case, and is part of an overall evaluation of the HIV prevention policy. Finally, the fifth opinion poll, commissioned by the city government of Berne, was part of a regularly conducted opinion poll addressed to the city population. It was introduced as part of a reform project in the tradition of ‘New Public Management’. The purpose of the poll is to measure the inhabitants’ satisfaction with the administration’s performance. The case studies started out with some basic assumptions on how to structure the processes of using polls and their impact, splitting it into three basic stages: The process starts with the individual use of the poll report, for example, with the commissioning actors reading the report and processing the respective information (phase ). The commissioning actors might use the results of the polls in political communication in their administrative unit as well as in other arenas, including with the general public (phase ). The use in political communication might affect political decisions, that is, the attitudes and the behavior of other actors in a particular arena, and thus might have an impact on the agenda or even decisions (phase ). 5. The case study was limited to the use made by the Swiss Alcohol Board..
(7) - . F The process of using polls. In addition, we analyzed whether changes in attitudes (phase ) had consequences for the decisional behavior of the commissioning actors and subsequently affected decisions in the jurisdiction of the commissioning administrative unit. The data were collected by semi-standardized interviews and documentary analysis. The analyses followed a case study protocol, stating the questions to be addressed for each case (Yin , ). The presentation of the main findings is organized according to the three phases that constitute our basic assumptions. USE OF COMMISSIONING ACTORS: INFORMATION PROCESSING We began by trying to reconstruct the effects of reading and processing the results of the poll on the commissioning actors. By commissioning actors, we mean those persons directly involved in conceptualizing the study and collaborating with the executing polling firm. We analyzed: • how the actors evaluated the new information provided by the poll results (Schulz , Galtung and Ruge ); • how they evaluated the credibility of the poll as a source of information (Donsbach , p. ); • whether they accepted the findings (Zimbardo and Leippe , pp. –); and • whether reading the poll results influenced their attitudes towards the framing of the problem or topic of the poll (Rochefort and Cobb ), its salience (Eichhorn ) or the envisioned political solutions in terms of goals and instruments (Linder and Peters , Schneider and Ingram ). Our hypothesis was that the acceptance of the results, and whether the actors.
(8) . . found the poll to be a credible source of information, would be preconditions for the further use of poll results in political communication. In all five cases the commissioning actors accepted the results and believed they were credible.6 The commissioning actors of two of the five polls—the one on state finances and the one on regional employment centers—were evaluated as having provided a great deal of new information. Two polls—on alcoholrelated issues and on the AIDS prevention campaign—were evaluated as having contributed some new information. The poll questioning the citizens of the town of Berne did not add new information because it repeated the same questions asked the year before, and there were no dramatic changes in the answers. The two polls judged to have contributed much new information had been conducted for the first time. In the other three cases, polls on these issues had been conducted previously. Only one poll seems to have changed the attitudes of the commissioning actors. The results of the poll on federal finances were evaluated as having influenced the framing of the underlying problem, by indicating differences in knowledge and opinions between different target groups as well as identifying a lack of knowledge on certain questions. The other polls were evaluated as confirming the attitudes of the actors. USE IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION: FUNCTION, TARGET GROUPS, AND ARGUMENTATION The goal of the next stage of the analysis was to identify the use of poll results in political communication. The use in political communication was captured by using three concepts: the function of the use, the targeted groups and the manner in which the results were used. T F U P Based on the existing literature on the use of polls, four functions were distinguished (Crespi , p. , Weiss , pp. ff., Brettschneider , pp. ff., Longchamp , Fuchs and Pfetsch , p. , Jacobs and Shapiro , pp. –, Neidhardt , p. , van den Daele , Eichhorn , p. ): • Planning: Polls are targeted to contribute information for future decisions and projects. • Public relations: Polls are used as instruments in public relations, in order to 6 However, given that our analysis included an examination of the quality of the poll, only actors being satisfied with the results and the conduct of the poll, had granted us access. The missing variance with respect to the acceptance and satisfaction with polls, therefore, is likely to have also resulted from the limited choice among polls commissioned by the federal administration..
(9) - inform the public, to influence media reports, the public agenda, etc. (Jacobs and Shapiro , pp. ff.). • Evaluation: Polls are used to control, analyze and improve existing policies and projects. • Observation: Polls are not conducted in connection with a specific policy but provide information to observe the development of certain problems. Two out of the five polls were instruments for observation, namely the poll of the City of Berne and the poll on alcohol-related issues. Two were evaluative polls, namely the ones on the STOP-AIDS prevention campaign and the regional employment centers. Finally, the poll on the federal finances was designed to collect information to assist in the planning of future measures. These functions corresponded to the initial goals and the initial conception of the polls. At the same time, all five polls were used in public relations, as discussed below. T G The study identified the target groups, and also whom the commissioning actors tried to reach when communicating poll results. Relying on the distinction between intra- and inter-organizational use (Czerwick , p. , Brettschneider , p. ), the use within the commissioning actor’s larger administrative unit, for example, the department on the federal level, was labeled as intraorganizational use. With respect to inter-organizational use, we distinguished between using poll results, first, within the public administration, second, to address the legislature, third, to address cantons or communities, and fourth, to address the general public. All five polls were used in intra- as well as inter-organizational communication, mainly addressing actors within the department of the commissioning unit and the general public. No use of polls in communication with other departments in the administration was identified. Our five case studies show that the use of polls in political communication not only depends on the result of the reading and processing of the poll by the commissioning actors, but also on the design of the study, the function as well as the institutional context and the political connectivity (window of opportunity, Kingdon ), which is influenced by the behavior of other actors not involved in commissioning the poll. These more general conclusions results are based on the following detailed results. In two of the five cases, the poll results were not used in connection with concrete decision processes, but rather to inform the staff on the results, or they were simply mentioned as an instrument to improve administrative performance. These were the two polls which had an observing function, namely the poll of.
(10) . . the City of Berne and the poll on alcohol-related issues. Both were evaluated as not, or not greatly, contributing new facts. In the case of the STOP-AIDS campaign, the results were used to answer letters from citizens, criticizing the style of the campaign. This was not a planned use; the results, however—showing strong support for the campaign—proved to be useful when replying to critical letters. In only two out of five cases were the results used in communication with the legislature. The issues addressed in the other polls were not on the parliamentary arena at the time, or no members of parliament asked for information on the respective issues. In one case, the results were used in communication with the cantons, the states of the Swiss confederation. In the case of the regional employment centers, the cantons are in charge of implementing policy. Accordingly, the division of jurisdiction between the federal and the cantonal level might also influence the use of poll results. All five polls were used in public relations: texts for the media were released or even press conferences held; furthermore, articles were published in information brochures of the administration. No matter how differently our case polls were rated as influencing attitudes and contributing new information, they were all used for public relations. The use for public relations also seems to be independent of intra-organizational use. The case studies indicate that the use of poll results is not only the result of the commissioning actors’ strategic considerations, but might also be explained by features of the institutional context and ongoing debates. The administration seems to use poll results if they can be connected to ongoing decision-making processes or debates. The division of jurisdiction also influences who might be addressed with poll results. Accordingly, we added two more variables to our framework for analyzing the use and influence of polls (see Figure , No. and ). When used in concrete decision-making processes, the polls provided a basis of information and a basis for arguments. The function of the use seems to be strongly dependent on the original design of the poll (see Figure , No. ). The use in public relations was mainly limited to informing the press about the commissioning of the poll and the results. We did not follow up in detail how the respective polls were taken up and reported by the mass media, or how other actors used the polls to some effect or other. However, the respective variable ‘use by other actors’ was added to our initial framework (see Figure , No. ). From the beginning, the commissioning actors had planned to inform the public about the results of the polls. The fact that all five polls were also used in public relations by the commissioning administrative unit is a consequence of our limited access to the field. In particular there are polls in connection.
(11) - . F Framework for analyzing the use and impact of opinion polls. with direct-democratic decisions, of which the results were not used in public relations because the engagement of the government in the referendum campaign is strongly limited by legal norms (Ramseyer , Decurtins ). T M A Finally, we classified the way in which the poll results were used. Three ways of using poll results were distinguished: to support, to invalidate, or to be neutral. To support means the poll results were used to support a certain claim, a decision, etc., while to invalidate means that the poll results were used to argue against a certain proposition, point of view, etc. If the results are just mentioned without being part of an argument, we speak of a neutral use. The results of the polls were all used in a supportive way, two were also used to invalidate certain points of view, and two were also used in a neutral way. The results indicate, once again, a connection between the purpose and the function of the poll and the way in which the results were used. The studies with an evaluative or planning character were principally used in a confirming or disconfirming way, while the two studies with observation functions were also used in a more informative manner. IMPACT OF USING POLLS Poll results are only pieces in the decision-making puzzle of everyday politics. Polls might not have any effect at all, or negligible ones, on public policies (Brettschneider , p. fn , Carter ). This possibility is supported by research on the impact of scientific studies on policy formulation in general:.
(12) . . research on the effects of policy analysis has repeatedly disclosed that the results of one single study rarely influence policy outcomes’ (Weiss , p. ). In addition, the research on impact is confronted with the difficult task of establishing causal links between the use of polls and policy decisions, which is methodologically an extremely difficult task. There are two reasons for trying to reconstruct the impact of using polls despite the difficulties: first, to verify the often implicit assumption of the influence of polls on the public agenda, and second, to know more about opinion polls as an instrument and source of information for different actors in choosing their strategies. Our research for possible effects starts out with the assumption that in most cases more than one actor participates in the decision-making processes, and that by using poll results in political communication—either in personal communication or via different media—actors try to influence the attitudes of other relevant actors. The argumentative use might contribute to bringing an issue on the political agenda (agenda-setting) or accelerating the process of addressing salient issues (Jacobs and Shapiro , p. , Weiss , pp. ff., Crespi , p. ). If a problem has already found its way onto the political agenda, the argumentative use of poll results might aim at influencing the framing of a problem, or the goals and instruments attributed to solve it (Rochefort and Cobb , Eichhorn , Linder and Peters , Schneider and Ingram ). The commissioning actors might be successful in influencing other actors’ attitudes if they accept the arguments based on the polls results (Zimbardo and Leippe ). However, in order to influence policies, this influence must be relevant for the actors’ decisional and communicative behavior (Jacobs and Shapiro , p. ). The use of poll results in political communication might also motivate other actors, including the media, to take up the results in political communication. In additon, this might have effects on other actors’ behavior. Such feedback effects were not analyzed in our case studies. The decisions influenced by the polls are listed in Table . They were not solely the result of the use of polls, but of several different factors. However, the use of the poll results were a necessary but not a sufficient condition in the decision-making process. The main findings may be summarized as follows. First, the decisions influenced by the polls were almost exclusively in the power of the commissioning unit or the respective department. In the cases with clear impact, the commissioning units had the power to implement the poll results because they were themselves mainly responsible for the respective decisions. Second, despite methodological difficulties to reconstruct this type of effect, we did not find any indication of effects on the political agenda..
(13) - T Impact of polls on decisions within the jurisdiction of the commissioning unit Case studied. Effects found. State finances. Design homepage Newsletter Folder on the Department, distributed in regions with little knowledge Information in youth parliament Style and content Increase in willingness to answer questions of journalists, etc. Developing the future controlling systema None Design subsequent campaign (certain aspects of content). Employement centers Alcohol related issues AIDS prevention campaign City of Berne. None. a Because there was no systematic feedback to the federal administration on how the cantons redesigned their policies, the overall impacts on the cantonal level remain unspecified.. Third, in two out of the five cases, the use of polls did not have an impact on any political decision. These were the two polls which mainly had an observational function and which were hardly used in communication within the administration. Fourth, the most profound impact was found for the poll which had led to a change in the attitudes of the commissioning unit and which was used for decision-making processes within the department. Ironically, this poll was designed to help to improve, and later also to evaluate, the communication policy of the Financial Department, that is, it was strongly connected to the question of communication itself. CONCLUSIONS The results of the standardized questionnaire suggest a limited use of polling data by the Swiss government, which can be explained by institutional factors. Compared to the USA, governmental polling is much less institutionalized. The same certainly also applies to a comparison with Germany (Kaase and Pfetsch , Kobi ). In addition, the comparison with the USA raises the question of whether the two countries are not in fact exceptional cases, the USA being at the top end of a scale of governmental use of polling, and Switzerland at the low end. However, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed through future comparative research..
(14) . . Despite the comparably limited use, the case studies revealed that polls commissioned by the executive branch in Switzerland are used in a variety of ways and may influence specific decisions under certain conditions. Overall, the case studies suggest a focused impact on decisions in the jurisdiction of the administration. In addition, despite the fact that it was not possible to comprehensively reconstruct the feedback loop with other actors such as the media, using the polls and their respective impact, there were no indications that the polls might have played a crucial role in political agenda-setting or any large-scale decision-making. The selection of cases was limited. The results of the case studies can, therefore, not be generalized to all types of polls commissioned by the government. In addition, the case studies focused only on one type of actor and cannot, therefore, give a final answer to the question of the overall relevance of opinion polls for the Swiss political system. However, the findings allow for some broader conclusions. Issue polls can be a source of information used by government while elaborating or implementing public policies. For the Swiss government, opinion polls are hardly an instrument used to create public support. This might partly be explained by the institutional context: extensive and broad pre-parliamentary consultation procedures serve to identify and assess conflicts in order to adopt a proposal for winning a broad supporting coalition and to lower the possible threat of a referendum (Linder , pp. ff., Kriesi , pp. ff.). Therefore, political actors try to negotiate a compromise satisfying the organized interests that have the potential to launch or win a referendum. It is more important to win the support of the organized interests than to show a possible support by the large public, which also closely corresponds to the position of the major interest groups. Given the limited role of government in popular voting campaigns, resulting from legal restrictions, the (re)construction of public opinion does probably play a more important role for non-governmental actors, such as interestorganizations. On the one hand, they might use polling data for the purposes of agenda-setting. On the other, they might try to translate poll results directly into their campaigning strategies, that is, use survey data in the design of their campaigns, as is known to be the case for election campaigns. Another actor playing a role in public opinion polling is the print media. Findings which show high instances of reporting poll results in the print media, indicate, in fact, that opinion polling by the print media might be the one field where Switzerland is most comparable to other countries, including the USA (Hardmeier , , p. ). Finally, the use of opinion polls in public relations needs to be analyzed in greater depth. It might in fact be the case that opinion polls are used to adapt communication policies, for example, to successfully influence public opinion, rather than to shape substantive public policies. However, in order to understand.
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(16) . . Galtung, J. and Ruge, M. H. (): ‘The structure of foreign news. The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers’, Journal of Peace Research, , –. Geer, J. G. (): From Tea Leaves to Opinion Polls. A Theory of Democratic Leadership, New York, Columbia University Press. Hardmeier, S. (): ‘Political poll reporting in Swiss print media, analysis and suggestions for quality improvement’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, , –. Hardmeier, S. (): ‘Meinungsumfragen im Journalismus, Nachrichtenwert, Pra¨zision und Publikum’, Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, , –. Hardmeier, S. and Good, B. (): ‘Zur Nutzung und Verwendung von politischen Meinungsumfragen in der Schweiz. Ein Versuch der Quantifizierung aus vergleichender Perspektive’, Zurich, Unpublished manuscript. Hardmeier, S. and Kaspar, J. (): ‘Meinungsumfragen in der politischen Kommunikation. Zur Verwendung und Vermittlung von Befragungsresultaten im eidgeno¨ssischen Parlament. Eine explorativ-deskriptive Untersuchung’, Zurich, Unpublished manuscript. Heith, D. J. (): ‘Staffing the White House Public Opinion Apparatus, –’, Public Opinion Quarterly, , –. Jacobs, L. and Shapiro, R. Y. (): ‘Public opinion, institutions, and policy making: Studying substantive democracy’, Political Science and Politics, , –. Jacobs, L. R. and Shapiro, R. Y. (): ‘The rise of presidential polling. The Nixon White House in historical perspective’, Public Opinion Quarterly, , –. Jacobs, L. R. and Shapiro, R. Y. (): ‘Presidential manipulation of polls and public opinion: The Nixon Administration and the pollsters’, Political Science Quarterly, , –. Kaase, M. and Pfetsch, B. (): ‘Survey Research and Democracy—Analyses of a Difficult Relationship’. Paper read at XVIII IPSA-World Congress, August –, , at Quebec City. Kang, M.-E. (personal communication): ‘Monitoring the Use of Public Opinion Polls in Congress’. Project proposal under the supervision of Professor Michael Traugott, Michigan, Unpublished manuscript. Kingdon, J. W. (): Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, Boston, Little Brown. Kobi, S. (): ‘Entre pe´dagogie politique et de´magogie populiste’, Mots, –. Kriesberg, M. (): ‘What congressmen and administrators think of the polls’, Public Opinion Quarterly, , –. Kriesi, H. (): Le syste`me politique suisse, Paris, Economica. Linder, W. (): Swiss Democracy, Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies, Houndmills, Macmillan. Linder, S. H. and Peters, G. B. (): ‘Instruments of government. Perceptions and contexts’, Journal of Public Policy, , , –. Longchamp, C. (): ‘Was bringt die Demoskopie fu¨r die politische Kommunikation des Bundes. Kurzfassung des Referates an der Sonderklausur des Bundesrates “Von.
(17) - der Informations- zur umfassenden Kommunikationspolitik”’, November –, . Margolis, M. and Mauser, G. (): Manipulating Public Opinion. Essays on Public Opinion as a Dependent Variable, Pacific Grove, Brooks/Cole. ¨ ffentlichkeit, O ¨ ffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen’. In F. Neidhardt, F. (): ‘O ¨ ffentlichkeit, O ¨ ffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen, Opladen, Neidhardt (ed.): O Westdeutscher Verlag, pp. –. Page, B. and Shapiro, R. Y. (): The Rational Public, Fifty Years of Trends in American’s Policy Preferences, Chicago, Il., University of Chicago Press. Peer, L. (): ‘The practice of opinion polling as a disciplinary mechanism: A Foucauldian perspective’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, , –. Ramseyer, J. (): Zur Problematik der beho¨rdlichen Information im Vorfeld von Wahlen und Abstimmungen (Basler Studien zur Rechtswissenschaft, Reihe B, o¨ffentliches Recht), Basel, Helbing & Lichtenhahn. Rochefort, D. A. and Cobb, R. W. (): ‘Problem definition. An emerging perspective’. In D. A. Rochefort and R. W. Cobb (eds.): The Politics of Problem Definition, Lawrence, University of Kansas Press, pp. –. Schmidtchen, G. (): ‘Meinungsforschung und Direkte Demokratie’. In Schweizerisches Jahrbuch der Politischen Wissenschaft, Lausanne, pp. –. Schneider Larason, A. L. and Ingram, H. (): Policy Design for Democracy, Lawrence, University of Kansas Press. Schulz, W. (): ‘News structure and peoples awareness of political events’, Gazette, , –. Traugott, M. (): ‘The invocation of public opinion in Congress’, Paper presented at the th World Congress International Political Science Association, Quebec City. van den Daele, W. (): ‘Objektives Wissen als politische Ressource: Experten und Gegenexperten im Diskurs’. In W. van den Daele and F. Neidhard (eds.): Kommunikation und Entscheidung. Politische Funktionen o¨ffentlicher Meinungsbildung und diskursiver Verfahren, Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. Verba, S. (): ‘The citizen as respondent: Sample surveys and American democracy’, American Political Science Review, , –. Weiss, C. H. (): ‘The uneasy partnership endures: Social science and government’. In S. Brooks and A. G. Gagnon (eds.): Social Scientists, Policy and the State, New York, Praeger, pp. –. Yin, R. (): Case Study Research: Design and Method, Thousand Oaks, Sage. Yin, R. K. (): ‘The abridged version of case study research’. In L. Bickman and D. J. Rog (eds.): Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods, Thousand Oaks, Sage, pp. –. Zimbardo, P. G. and Leippe, M. R. (): The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence, New York, MacGraw-Hill.. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Christine Rothmayr is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, and Scientific Coordinator of the Laboratoire de recherches sociales et politiques applique´es, University of Geneva..
(18) . . Sibylle Hardmeier is assistant professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Zurich. She directs research in the area of political behavior and public opinion. Address correspondence to Dr. Christine Rothmayr, Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, Bd du Pont d’Arve , CH- Gene`ve , Switzerland, Email: Christine.Rothmayr@politic.unige.ch.
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