At 12:20 26/06/2016 +0100, Paul Spicker wrote:
>There was a common tendency in political science in the 1960s and 70s to
>view binary political choices, and two party systems, as treating in
>reality with shades of opinion and a spread of views, which then get
>forced into a binary expression. The nearest conventional technique for
>representing that numerically is the Likert Scale - strongly disagree,
>disagree, neither, agree, strongly agree etc. - and it's not uncommon for
>pollsters to eliminate the middle of that, because it's not an option in a
>vote. You're right on the specific point, but it's a plausible representation.
Fair enough. I now understand what you were saying but, as you say, it
doesn't really alter my point ....
If one looks at the 'shades of opinion' on, say, a Likert scale, the great
majority of those who "haven't a clue or don't care" will be at the middle
of that scale and therefore do not contribute to the overall deviation from
that central ('neutral') point. I would therefore say that it's just a
statement of the obvious to note that, in such a situation, the outcome
(overall/average deviation from that neutral point) will be dictated solely
by the (possibly tiny) majority whose views were closer to the extreme ends
of the scale.
In the referendum, this phenomenon would presumably have been apparent had
there been a third "don't know" (or "can't decide", or whatever) option on
the ballot sheet.
I suspect that such a phenomenon is common in referenda, and it's hard to
know what can be done about it. One could argue that it is inappropriate
to conduct a referendum if it is apparent that a high proportion of voters
will effectively be in a "don't know" category, since that means that a
decision will be made on the basis of the opinions of a tiny minority of
the electorate - but the only apparent alternative is to forget about
referenda in such situations and rely on elected representatives (i.e.
parliament) to "know what is best"!
Kind Regards,
John
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