IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v90y2009i1p104-112.html

The political use of poll results about public support for a privatized healthcare system in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Contandriopoulos, Damien
  • Bilodeau, Henriette

Abstract

Objectives Within the context of the political debate on privatization of healthcare funding in Canada, this paper examines the nature and the various role of polls.Methods To reach this objective we rely on available commercial polls and statistical surveys and qualitatively analyse them to illustrate methodological and logical problems as well as to distinguish between what we call the 'informative' and the 'political' use of poll results.Results We first draw a portrait of Quebecers' and Canadians' positions on the healthcare system and use this portrait to highlight a certain number of logical and methodological issues related to the political use of polls. Our analysis shows that public support for privatization of the healthcare system, as presented in the polls, is a construct whose logical underpinnings and methodological validity are extremely weak.Conclusions We then discuss those results to argue that polls are not only used to represent the public's preferences but are also political tools used to shape those preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Contandriopoulos, Damien & Bilodeau, Henriette, 2009. "The political use of poll results about public support for a privatized healthcare system in Canada," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 104-112, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:90:y:2009:i:1:p:104-112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(08)00178-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Page, Benjamin I. & Shapiro, Robert Y., 1983. "Effects of Public Opinion on Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 175-190, March.
    2. N/A, 2008. "Introductory Remarks," China Report, , vol. 44(1), pages 31-32, February.
    3. Soroka, Stuart N. & Wlezien, Christopher, 2005. "Opinion–Policy Dynamics: Public Preferences and Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 665-689, October.
    4. Menezes, Flavio M., 2008. "An Introduction to Auction Theory," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199275991.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christopher J Williams, 2016. "Issuing reasoned opinions: The effect of public attitudes towards the European Union on the usage of the 'Early Warning System'," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 504-521, September.
    2. Keatley, P. & Shibli, A. & Hewitt, N.J., 2013. "Estimating power plant start costs in cyclic operation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 550-557.
    3. Buckley Fiona & Hofman Caroline, 2015. "Women in local government: Moving in from the margins," Administration, Sciendo, vol. 63(2), pages 79-99, August.
    4. Lim, Eunjung, 2016. "Multilateral approach to the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle in Asia-Pacific?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 158-164.
    5. Williams, Simon J. & Coveney, Catherine M. & Gabe, Jonathan, 2013. "Medicalisation or customisation? Sleep, enterprise and enhancement in the 24/7 society," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 40-47.
    6. Tyers, Rod, 2014. "Looking inward for transformative growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 166-184.
    7. Dino Falaschetti, 2008. "Can Lobbying Prevent Anticompetitive Outcomes? Evidence On Consumer Monopsony In Telecommunications," Journal of Competition Law and Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(4), pages 1065-1096.
    8. Marcelo Bucheli & Min-Young Kim, 2012. "Political Institutional Change, Obsolescing Legitimacy, and Multinational Corporations," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 52(6), pages 847-877, December.
    9. Meng, Tianguang & Su, Zheng, 2021. "When top-down meets bottom-up: Local officials and selective responsiveness within fiscal policymaking in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    10. Blekesaune, Morten, 2006. "Economic conditions and public attitudes toward welfare state policies," ISER Working Paper Series 2006-45, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    11. Chen Tsun Yung & Kuan Chen Tsai, 2013. "Followership: An Important Partner of Leadership," Business and Management Horizons, Macrothink Institute, vol. 1(2), pages 47-55, December.
    12. Koen, Jennifer & Wassenaar, Douglas & Mamotte, Nicole, 2017. "The ‘over-researched community’: An ethics analysis of stakeholder views at two South African HIV prevention research sites," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 1-9.
    13. Moraga-González, José L. & Sándor, Zsolt & Wildenbeest, Matthijs R., 2014. "Prices, Product Differentiation, And Heterogeneous Search Costs," IESE Research Papers D/1097, IESE Business School.
    14. Carvalho Lopes, Celia Mendes & Bolfarine, Heleno, 2012. "Random effects in promotion time cure rate models," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 75-87, January.
    15. Armèn Hakhverdian, 2009. "Capturing Government Policy on the Left–Right Scale: Evidence from the United Kingdom, 1956–2006," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 57(4), pages 720-745, December.
    16. Lamberova, Natalia, 2021. "The puzzling politics of R&D: Signaling competence through risky projects," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 801-818.
    17. Susana Bernardino & J. Freitas Santos, 2015. "Financing social ventures by crowdfunding: the influence of entrepreneurs’ personality traits," NIPE Working Papers 12/2015, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    18. Henrik Serup Christensen & Lauri Rapeli, 2021. "Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 63-94, March.
    19. Colvin, John & Blackmore, Chris & Chimbuya, Sam & Collins, Kevin & Dent, Mark & Goss, John & Ison, Ray & Roggero, Pier Paolo & Seddaiu, Giovanna, 2014. "In search of systemic innovation for sustainable development: A design praxis emerging from a decade of social learning inquiry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 760-771.
    20. Niklas Harring & Sverker C. Jagers, 2013. "Should We Trust in Values? Explaining Public Support for Pro-Environmental Taxes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:90:y:2009:i:1:p:104-112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.