Beyond the Horse Race, Chapter 8 Summary
In the chapter 8 of the recently released book by John Zogby, “Beyond the Horse Race, How to Read Polls and Why We Should,” Zogby addresses the peculiar challenges involved in the polling of overseas elections.
Zogby and his political polling company having conducted polls in over 195 countries thus relies on his experience in attempting to explain a number of logistical, cultural, and political complications with international polling. To do foreign country polls, one has to be really attuned to the local customs, politics, and social dynamics, which might affect the results in a big way.
For this, Zogby points to a couple of key problems, among which include the unavailability of accessible, reliable voter rolls, missing questionnaires in the native languages of the respondents, and general lack of freedom-most probably making respondents not tell the truth. They could be afraid to give any opinions that may be perceived as anti-government because of authoritarian regimes there, or just because press freedom is limited in those countries.
Zogby follows with a few diversified examples taken from his work in countries like Israel, Tunisia, and Mexico all very different from the United States in terms of political environments. He stresses using flexibility and adaptability about the polls according to the cultural background in which they are carried out, underlining how what works in one country does not work in another.
Key Learnings from Chapter 8:
Be culturally sensitive: Methods need to be adapted to the context of the local environment, with the interviewer sensitive to some of the cultural factors that will drive the way respondents answer.
Freedom and Trust Affect Responses: Whenever countries either exist under the yoke of oppression or where freedom seems to choke the life out, the very admission of opinion and accuracy in results get affected.
Flexibility: International polling involves methodologies that are flexible since the logistic and cultural challenges may be grossly different from one country to another.
