The phrase “deliberative polls” most often refers to political philosopher James Fishkin’s conception of a multi-stage opinion poll that incorporates systematic deliberation on policy issues. As such, Fishkin has trademarked the phrase “deliberative polling.” It can refer to other methods of introducing a deliberative component to public opinion research, some of which are touched on
The history of survey research is inseparably entwined with the development of election polling. As early as 1904, social scientists completed the first quantitative study focusing on the constituency of the Social Democratic Party in Germany. The breakthrough of the representative survey method in the year 1936 was brought about by the spectacularly successful election
Election polls have a long history of a symbiotic relationship with the media, dating back to the nineteenth century (Converse 1987; Frankovic 2008). However, it was not until the 1920s that polls insinuated themselves into the news operations of election coverage on a regular basis. Before the advent of the modern polling period, the major