Introduction

Abstract

Political opinion polling is very much a national rather than an international activity. In each democratic country polling has developed its own institutes, history of political polls, use of polling in both the public (press, radio and television) and the private (political parties and individual politicians) sectors and, to some degree, differing national methodologies. Yet there are many aspects of the methodological basis of polling that cross national borders. Question techniques translate, as do sampling procedures and data processing programmes for cross-tabulation of results and multivariate analysis. Also, many of us involved in the practice of political opinion polling naturally have an interest in what our counterparts in other countries are doing in their work for their clients, the media and the political parties.