Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T01:22:07.483Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fear and Loathing in Paris

The Reception of Opinion Polling in France, 1938-1977

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Jon Cowans
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1978, some 40 years after the practice of opinion polling first arrived in France, the country’s newspapers and magazines informed their readers that 76% of the French approved of Charles de Gaulle’s role in World War II, that 77% did not consider the pope’s moral instructions binding, that 83% never participated in winter sports, and that 36% thought Michel Rocard would be a good finance minister. Anyone who could not remember those findings for long might be forgiven, for they were but drops in an ocean of polling data, a tidal wave of information that swept over France each year. For many, this onslaught of polling data is deeply disturbing, given their belief that opinion polls have undermined elected representatives’ ability to use their judgment in making political decisions and have silenced other, more authentic expressions of popular opinion (for example, see Champagne 1990). Even those who welcomed les sondages d’opinion as a new means of bringing the people’s voice into arenas of power might still have felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of them published in France by that time–well over 500 in a typical year, according to one 1984 estimate–and many began to characterize the country’s apparently insatiable appetite for polls as sondomanie, or “poll mania” ( Jaffré 1985). Perhaps it was only to be expected that France, one of the pioneers in the creation of modern democracy, would be among the countriesmost interested in using polls to proclaim the will of the people to the humble and the powerful alike.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , Spring 2002 , pp. 71 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2002 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Blondiaux, L. (1990) “ Lazarsfeld, Paul F. (1901–1976) et Stoetzel, Jean (1910–1987) et les sondages d’opinion: Genèse d’un discours scientifique.” Mots 23: 5–22.Google Scholar
Blondiaux, L. (1998) La fabrique de l’opinion. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1972) “Les doxosophes.”Minuit 1: 26–45.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1979) “Public opinion does not exist.” Trans.Axtmann, M., In Mattel, A., and Siegelaub, S. (eds.) Communication and Class Struggle, vol.1. New York: International General: 124–30.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Trans.Nice, R. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1985) “Remarques à propos de la valeur scientifique et des effets politiques des enquêtes d’opinion.” Pouvoirs 33: 131–39.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1990) In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Trans. Adamson, M. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Brulé, M. (1988) L’empire des sondages: Transparence ou manipulation? Paris: Robert Laffont.Google Scholar
Cayrol, R. (1986) La nouvelle communication politique. Paris: Larousse.Google Scholar
Champagne, P. (1990) Faire l’opinion: Le nouveau jeu politique. Paris: Editions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Cowans, J. (1991) “French public opinion and the founding of the Fourth Republic.” French Historical Studies 17: 62–95.Google Scholar
Cowans, J. (1994) “Wielding the people: Opinion polls and the problem of legitimacy in France since 1944.” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University.Google Scholar
Cowans, J. (2001) To Speak for the People: Public Opinion and the Problem of Legitimacy in the French Revolution. New York and London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crouzet, P. (1985) “La jurisprudence de la Commission des Sondages, 1973-1984.” Pouvoirs 33: 57–69.Google Scholar
Druon, M. (1977 [1972]) “A propos des sondages.” Reprinted in Sondages: Revue française de l’opinion publique 39: 40–47.Google Scholar
Duhamel, O., and Dupin, E. (1985) “Enquête auprès des instituts.” Pouvoirs 33: 105–20.Google Scholar
Gallup, G. H., Dodd, S. C., Lazersfeld, P. F., and Meier, N. C. (1949) “Unsettled problems of the sampling survey methodology,” in Meier, Norman C., and Saunders, Harold W. (eds.) The Polls and Public Opinion. New York: Henry Holt: 314–34.Google Scholar
Girard, A., and Malinvaud, E. eds. (1989) Les enquêtes d’opinion et la recherche en sciences sociales: Hommageà Jean Stoetzel. Paris: L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Jaffré, J. (1985) “Réflexions sur la ‘sondomanie.’” Pouvoirs 33: 15–22.Google Scholar
Jaffré, J. (1988) “Incertitudes et avenir de la démocratie des sondages.” Le débat 52: 41–54.Google Scholar
Laurentin, A., and Retel, J. (1985) “Que nous apprennent les sondages d’opinion?” Les temps modernes 467: 2149–97.Google Scholar
Lazareff, A. (1983) Le droit des sondages politiques: Analyse de la réglementation française. Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence.Google Scholar
Max, A. (1981) La république des sondages. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Meynaud, H., and Duclos, D. (1985) Les sondages d’opinion. Paris: Editions la Découverte.Google Scholar
Richard-Zappella, J. (1990) “Mobilisation de l’opinion publique par les sondages.” Mots 23: 60–75.Google Scholar
Riffault, H. (1981) “L’Institut français d’opinion publique 1938–1978,” in Science et théorie d’opinion publique: Hommage à Jean Stoetzel. Paris: Retz: 231–46.Google Scholar
Riffault, H. (1989) “La perception des enquêtes d’opinion,” in Girard, A., and Malinvaud, E. (eds.) Les enquêtes d’opinion et la recherche en sciences sociales: Hommageà Jean Stoetzel. Paris: L’Harmattan: 13–36.Google Scholar
Stoetzel, J. (1957) “Sociology in France: An empiricist view,” in Becker, H., and Boskoff, A. (eds.) Modern Sociological Theory in Continuity and Change. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston: 623–57.Google Scholar
Stoetzel, J. (1973) “Faut-il bruler les sondages?” Preuves 13: 7–14.Google Scholar
Stoetzel, J. (1983) “L’Homme par qui les sondages sont arrivés.”L’Express, 16 December: 156–69.Google Scholar
Stoetzel, J., and Girard, A. (1973) Les sondages d’opinion publique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Weber, Eugen (1976) Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rurál France, 1870–1914. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Worcester, R. ed. (1983) Political Opinion Polling: An International Review. New York: St. Martin’s.Google Scholar
Worcester, R. (1991) British Public Opinion: A Guide to the History and Methodology of Political Opinion Polling. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar