[lbo-talk] Pollitt on Dean

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Aug 28 12:05:38 PDT 2003



>
> Cue to Prof Cox, to tell us polls are bullshit.
>
> Doug

Bullshit or not, I would take it with a grain of salt. What surprises me the most in these results is very little differences between major socio-demographic groups (e.g. Male - Female, Occupations, or age). The same percent of men and women, young and old, wanting an Islamic republic? Something is fishy here.

Another caveat is the methods how the survey was administered. I find it hard to believe that the interviewers were freely roaming through the streets of Baghdad, asking people questions. A more likely scenario is that the interviewers were somehow 'embedded.' Now how likely is it that a person in an occupied country asked by an interviewer accompanied by the occupying army soldiers would say that he/she does not like the occupying army? Or perhaps there was a variation in how the survey was administered (i.e. some interviewers were embedded while others were not) -which if true may help explaining the remarkably small differences between socio-demographic groups - those asked by 'embedded' interviewers (men and women alike) gave 'safe' responses, while those asked by not embedded ones spoke up their minds.

In any case, it is hard to tell without knowing the details. I am thus not dismissing these results, but I remain skeptical.

Wojtek



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