Public Opinion Sampling: Increasingly trade policy debates and issues are being defined and driven by public polling and expert opinion. Mendellson and Wolfe (2004) offer an overview of the public policy debate in Canada and the roll of polling in defining the issues and outcomes. It is important for trade policy advisors and marketers to understand and be able to assess the output of the wide range of extensive polling exercises.
At one level, it is only natural that governments engage in processes to bring more views into government. Particularly where trade negotiations involve significant domestic trade-offs, governments need inputs. The big question is whose views should count and how can you get accurate polling results that reflect the views of citizens and interested groups. In the past the main challenge facing government was to figure out what was the right answer (morally, politically, economically), which generally allowed governments to engage in a modernist dialogue with experts, who could use deductive reasoning to identify optimal policies and strategies. Increasingly, however, there is a post-modernist push for policy to reflect the social values of communities. While this is a laudable goal, it raises questions about how to elicit society’s opinions in an accurate manner.
A wide range of methods have been tried, some with more precision and science behind them than others. Generally, opinions (expert, public or group) are brought into the process either through quantitative statistical polling or through some form of qualitative dialogue or process. Each has its merits and uses