Miller Center

Has Polling Killed Democracy?: Polling bibliography

General Works Polling and the News Media Deliberative Polling
History of Polling Presidents and Polling On-Line Polling
Understanding Polls Political Attitudes in America Polling and Race
Polls and Policymaking Public Opinion and Democracy Reference Works

General Works

Berinsky, Adam. Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Bishop, George. The Illusion of Public Opinion: Fact and Artifact in American Opinion Polls. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.

Bogart, Leo. Polls and the Awareness of Public Opinion. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1985.

Crespi, Irving. Public Opinion, Polls, and Democracy. Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.

Gallup, George. The Sophisticated Poll Watcher's Guide. Princeton: Princeton Opinion Press, 1972.

Gallup, George and Saul Forbes Rae. The Pulse of Democracy: The Public-Opinion Poll and How it Works. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1940.

Genovese, Michael and Matthew Streb, eds. Polls and Politics: The Dilemmas of Democracy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004.

Ginsberg, Benjamin. The Captive Public: How Mass Opinion Promotes State Power. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

Herbst, Susan. Numbered Voices: How Opinion Polling Has Shaped American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Mendelsohn, Harold and Irving Crespi. Polls, Televison, and the New Politics. Scranton, PA: Chandler Publishing Company, 1970.

Newport, Frank. Polling Matters: Why Leaders Must Listen to the Wisdom of the People. New York: Warner Books, 2004.

Roll, Charles and Albert Cantril. Polls: Their Use and Misuse in Politics. New York: Basic Books, 1972.

Wheeler, Michael. Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America. New York: Liveright: 1976.

The History of Polling

Converse, Jean. Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence, 1890-1960. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Igo, Sarah. The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007.

Moore, David. The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Opinion in America. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992.

Understanding Polls

Asher, Herbert. Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2004.

Bradburn, Norman and Seymour Sudman. Polls & Surveys: Understanding What They Tell Us. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988.

Stonecash, Jeffrey. Political Polling: Strategic Information in Campaigns. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Traugott, Michael and Paul Lavrakas. The Voter's Guide to Election Polls. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.

Polls and Policymaking

Cantril, Albert, ed. Polling on the Issues: Twenty-One Perspectives on the Role of Opinion Polls in the Making of Public Policy. Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1980.

Cohen, Bernard. The Public's Impact on Foreign Policy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.

Erikson, Robert, Gerald Wright, and John McIver. Statehouse Democracy: Public Opinion and Policy in the American States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Hinckley, Ronald. People, Polls, and Policymakers: American Public Opinion and National Security. New York: Lexington Books, 1994.

Jacobs, Lawrence and Robert Shapiro. Politicians Don't Pander: Political Manipulation and the Loss of Democratic Responsiveness. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Jacobs, Lawrence. The Health of Nations: Public Opinion and the Making of American and British Health Policy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993.

_____."The Recoil Effect: Public Opinion and Policymaking in the U.S. and Britain," Comparative Politics 24 (1992): 199-217.

Kusnitz, Leonard. Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: America's China Policy, 1949-1979. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984.

Manza, Jeff and Fay Cook. Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy, and the Future of American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Mueller, John. War, Presidents, and Public Opinion. New York: Wiley, 1973.

Quirk, Paul and Joseph Hinchliffe, "The Rising Hegemony of Mass Opinion," in Loss of Confidence: Politics and Policy of the 1970s, David Brian Robertson, ed. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 1998.

Sobel, Richard, ed. Public Opinion in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Controversy over Contra Aid. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993.

Polling and the News Media

Cantril, Albert. The Opinion Connection: Polling, Politics, and the Press. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1991.

Gawiser, Sheldon and Evans Witt. A Journalist's Guide to Public Opinion Polls. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994.

Lavrakas, Paul and Michael Traugott. Election Polls, the News Media, and Democracy. New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2000.

Lavrakas, Paul, Michael Traugott, and Peter Miller. Presidential Polls and the News Media. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.

Lavrakas, Paul and Jack Holley. Polling and Presidential Election Coverage. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991.

Mann, Thomas and Gary Orren, eds. Media Polls in American Politics. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992.

Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism: A Reporter's Introduction to Social Science Methods. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.

Presidents and Polling

Altschuler, Bruce. Keeping a Finger on the Public Pulse: Private Polling and Presidential Elections. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.

_____. LBJ and the Polls. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990.

Brace, Paul and Barbara Hinckley. Follow the Leader: Opinion Polls and the Modern Presidency. New York: Basic Books, 1992.

Eisinger, Robert. The Evolution of Presidential Polling. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Geer, John. From Tea Leaves to Opinion Polls: A Theory of Democratic Leadership. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Heith, Diane. Polling to Govern: Public Opinion and Presidential Leadership. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Holli, Melvin. The Wizard of Washington: Emil Hurja, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Birth of Public Opinion Polling. New York: Palgrave, 2002.

Jacobs, Lawrence and Robert Shapiro. "Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: the Use of Private Polls in Kennedy's 1960 Presidential Campaign." American Political Science Review, 88, September 1994: 527-40.

_____. "Presidential Manipulation of the Polls and Public Opinion: The Nixon Administration and the Pollsters." Political Science Quarterly, 110, 4, Winter, 1995-1996: 519-538.

_____. "The Rise of Presidential Polling: The Nixon White House in Historical Perspective." Public Opinion Quarterly 59, Summer 1995: 163-195.

Lang, Gladys & Kurt Lang. The Battle for Public Opinion: The President, the Press, and the Polls during Watergate. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Murray, Shoon Kathleen and Peter Howard. "Variation in White House Polling Operations: Carter to Clinton." Public Opinion Quarterly, 66, 2000: 527-558.

Rottinghaus, Brandon. "Reassessing Public Opinion Polling in the Truman Administration," Presidential Studies Quarterly, 33.2, June 2003: 325-333.

Steele, Richard. "The Pulse of the People: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Gauging of Public Opinion," Journal of Contemporary History, 9, No. 4, 1974: 195-216.

Political Attitudes in America

Harris, Louis. Inside America. New York: Vintage Books, 1987.

McCloskey, Herbert and John Zaller. The American Ethos: Public Attitudes Towards Capitalism and Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984.

Miller, Warren and J. Merrill Shanks. The New American Voter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Nie, Norman, Sidney Verba, John Petrocik. The Changing American Voter. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Page, Benjamin and Robert Shapiro. The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends of Trends in Americans' Policy Preferences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Stimson, James. Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings. Boulder: Westview Press, 1991.

Public Opinion and Democracy

Bourdieu, Pierre. "Public Opinion Does Not Exist," in Communication and Class Struggle, Armand Mattelart and Seth Siegelaub, eds. New York: International General, 1979.

Converse, Philip. "Changing Conceptions of Public Opinion in the Political Process." Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 51, Part 2: Supplement: 50th Anniversary Issue, 1987: S12-S24.

Davison, W. Phillips. "Public Opinion," in International Opinion of the Social Sciences, David Sills, ed. New York: MacMillan, 1968: 188-197.

Iyengar, Shanto and Donald Kinder. News That Matters: Television and American Opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

Key, V.O., Jr. Public Opinion and American Democracy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961.

Lasswell, Harold. Democracy Through Public Opinion. Menasha, WI: Banta, 1941.

Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922.

Zaller, John. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Deliberative Polling

Fishkin, James. Democracy and Deliberation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

_____. "The Televised Deliberative Poll: An Experiment in Democracy." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,456, 1996: 132-140.

_____. The Voice of the People. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

On-Line Polling

Rosenblatt, Alan. "On-Line Polling: Methodological Limitations and Implications for Electronic Democracy." Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 4, 1999: 30-44.

Wu, Wei and David Weaver. "On-Line Democracy or On-Line Demagoguery? Public Opinion 'Polls' on the Internet." Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2, 1997: 71-86.

Polling and Race

Kinder, Donald and Lynn Sanders. Divided by Color: Racial Politics and Democratic Ideals. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Sniderman, Paul and Thomas Piazza. The Scar of Race. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Reference Works

Best, Samuel and Benjamin Radcliff. Polling America: An Encyclopedia of Public Opinion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005.

Gallup, Alec. The Gallup Poll: Cumulative Index: Public Opinion, 1935-1997. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1999.

Geer, John. Public Opinion and Polling Around the World: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Glynn, Carroll, Susan Herbst, Garrett J. O'Keefe, and Robert Shapiro. Public Opinion. Boulder: Westview Press, 1999.

The Gallup Poll, 1935-2000: A Year 2000 Review. Princeton: Gallup Poll, 2000.

The Gallup Poll, Public Opinion 1935-1971, 3 Vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood, Press, 1972.

Walden, Graham. Polling and Survey Research Methods, 1935-1979: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.

_____. Public Opinion Polls and Survey Research: A Selective Annotated Bibliography of U.S. Guides and Studies from the 1980s. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990.

_____. Survey Research Methodology, 1990-1999: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.

Young, Michael. Dictionary of Polling: The Language of Contemporary Opinion Research. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.


Compiled by Mark Nevin
March 26, 2008

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