Conference of the British Sociological Association, 1955. V Public Opinion, Polls and Foreign Policy.

The article focuses on public opinions, polls and foreign policy in Great Britain, discussed at the Conference of the British Sociological Association in 1955. Public opinion can be considered in two ways: firstly, as a theoretical concept belonging to the realm of political theory and which is, in general, the intellectual foster-mother of the movements for liberal reform in the nineteenth century. Secondly, public opinion can be considered to mean what public opinion pollers say it is. As a concept in political theory, it is interesting to note that while public opinion was regarded as another name for the general will, the latter was felt to apply only to political issues within the state. Foreign policy was felt to be outside the sphere of the general will. The way in which an individual person views foreign affairs depends upon his position in the social structure, his income, education, occupation, his party: and it is influenced by his age and historical experiences. This is a truism, because the same thing may be said about his views on domestic issues. But whereas in domestic issues the opinions of groups are often sharply opposed, in foreign affairs what is common to all of them is more outstanding than what differentiates them. Those who analyze polls divide the public into three categories: the unaware, the people who confess they have neither read nor heard of important issues in foreign policy; the aware, the people who have heard or read but have only rudimentary knowledge; the informed, the people who are not only aware of issues, but who also know their meaning and their implications.