Recent Articles in the Field of Public Opinion Research

Abstract

In this section, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research reviews articles that have recently been published in peer-refereed journals and which broadly relate to the field of public opinion. The intention is not to give an exhaustive overview of a given study but rather to alert our readers to interesting ideas and research in our field. This article compares public attitudes in the 1990s to privatization across a number of different countries and in relation to three industries, electricity, healthcare, and banking. Battaglio's purpose is to test and explain public opinion toward the choice between private and public provision of services, and he notes the paucity of research on public opinion formation in this field, which he considers “striking” given the customer orientation of the policy. His data are drawn from the 1996 International Social Survey Program, and cover 11 countries, all developed market economies. He uses an initial empirical model to examine citizen preferences across countries, measuring opinion direction, certainty, and indecision for conflicted respondents. His findings show differences related both to countries and industries, but individuals are also influenced by concerns about self-interest, party preference, and political values; further, those who declare higher levels of interest in politics are also more certain in their policy choices.