First Published in 1990. The decade of the 1980s witnessed an increasing use of polls and surveys as well as an expanded research effort into public opinion polls and survey research from the economic, historical, legal, methodological, organizational, and political viewpoints. The purpose of this volume is to provide a resource for practitioners, researchers, students, librarians, and others seeking access to this interdisciplinary literature. Instructional guides, handbooks, reference works, textbooks, research studies, and evaluative and critical studies on public opinion polls and survey research published since 1980 are included in this bibliography.

The American National Election Studies (ANES) is the premier social science survey program devoted to voting and elections. Conducted during the presidential election years and midterm Congressional elections, the survey is based on interviews with voters and delves into why they make certain choices. In this edited volume, John Aldrich and Kathleen McGraw bring together a group of leading social scientists that developed and tested new measures that might be added to the ANES, with the ultimate goal of extending scholarly understanding of the causes and consequences of electoral outcomes. The contributors--leading experts from several disciplines in the fields of polling, public opinion, survey methodology, and elections and voting behavior--illuminate some of the most important questions and results from the ANES 2006 pilot study. They look at such varied topics as self-monitoring in the expression of political attitudes, personal values and political orientations, alternate measures of political trust, perceptions of similarity and disagreement in partisan groups, measuring ambivalence about government, gender preferences in politics, and the political issues of abortion, crime, and taxes. Testing new ideas in the study of politics and the political psychology of voting choices and turnout, this collection is an invaluable resource for all students and scholars working to understand the American electorate.

The nature of survey research - The survey process - Sampling procedures - Questionnaire construction - The data collection stage - Coding practices - Designing survey - The process of data analysis - Single-variable statistics - Statistical inference for means - Two-variable tables - Measures of association - Control tables - Correlation and regression - Writing survey reports - Evaluating surveys - The ethics of polls.

′Some of the most experienced and thoughtful research experts in the world have contributed to this comprehensive Handbook, which should have a place on every serious survey researcher′s bookshelf′ - Sir Robert Worcester, Founder of MORI and President of WAPOR ′82-′84. ′This is the book I have been waiting for. It not only reflects the state of the art, but will most likely also shape public opinion on public opinion research′ - Olof Petersson, Professor of political science, SNS, Stockholm, Sweden ′The Handbook of Public Opinion Research is very authoritative, well organized, and sensitive to key issues in opinion research around the world. It will be my first choice as a general reference book for orienting users and training producers of opinion polls in Southeast Asia′ - Mahar K. Mangahas, Ph.D., President of Social Weather Stations, Philippines (www.sws.org.ph) ′This is the most comprehensive book on public opinion research to date′ - Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Secretary-Treasurer, World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR); Director of Public Opinion Programme, The University of Hong Kong Public opinion theory and research are becoming increasingly significant in modern societies as people′s attitudes and behaviours become ever more volatile and opinion poll data becomes ever more readily available. This major new Handbook is the first to bring together into one volume the whole field of public opinion theory, research methodology, and the political and social embeddedness of polls in modern societies. It comprehensively maps out the state-of-the-art in contemporary scholarship on these topics. With over fifty chapters written by distinguished international researchers, both academic and from the commercial sector, this Handbook is designed to: - give the reader an overview of the most important concepts included in and surrounding the term ′public opinion′ and its application in modern social research - present the basic empirical concepts for assessing public opinion and opinion changes in society - provide an overview of the social, political and legal status of public opinion research, how it is perceived by the public and by journalists, and how it is used by governments - offer a review of the role and use of surveys for selected special fields of application, ranging from their use in legal cases to the use of polls in marketing and campaigns. The Handbook of Public Opinion Research provides an indispensable resource for both practitioners and students alike.

In a rigorous critique of public opinion polling in the U.S., George F. Bishop makes the case that a lot of what passes as "public opinion" in mass media today is an illusion, an artifact of measurement created by vague or misleading survey questions presented to respondents who typically construct their opinions on the spot. Using evidence from a wide variety of data sources, Bishop shows that widespread public ignorance and poorly informed opinions are the norm rather than definitive public opinion on key political, social, and cultural issues of the day. The Illusion of Public Opinion presents a number of cautionary tales about how American public opinion has supposedly changed since 9/11, amplified by additional examples on other occasions drawn from the American National Election Studies. Bishop's analysis of the pitfalls of asking survey questions and interpreting poll results leads the reader to a more skeptical appreciation of the art and science of public opinion polling as it is practiced today.

Written by leading scholars in the field, Causes of War provides the first comprehensive analysis of the leading theories relating to the origins of both interstate and civil wars. Utilizes historical examples to illustrate individual theories throughout Includes an analysis of theories of civil wars as well as interstate wars -- one of the only texts to do both Written by two former International Studies Association Presidents

Explains how polls are conducted, describes the causes of polling errors, and discusses how polls are used and interpreted.