Polling, Power and Legitimacy: The Politics of Representation and the Making of Publics

This dissertation is situated at the cross-section of Science and Technology Studies (STS), philosophy and sociology of science, and social theories of knowledge and ignorance. Building on historical literature on statistical thought and qualitative interviews, this research explores the history and sociology of survey research and polling. The central aim is to trace the emergence and potential dissolution of what is seen as the established scientific criteria governing survey research and polling, with particular attention to a longstanding, contentious controversy surrounding probability and non-probability sampling. Methodologically, the thesis draws on semi-structured interviews with polling experts based in industry and the academy, juxtaposed with a genealogical analysis of the history of different ontological and epistemological assumptions surrounding the validity of different polling techniques. The thesis explores competing paradigms throughout modern history for understanding the representativeness of polls. Drawing on the concept of boundary work, I analyse how proponents of competing polling programmes seek to legitimize their own approach while simultaneously delegitimizing the opposing viewpoint. In looking at different polling controversies and developing the new notion of ‘forging stable statistical chains’, the thesis explores questions around ontological politics, examining the formation and sustenance of publics through surveys and polls. The research presented in this thesis seeks to provide a sociological analysis of the making of social scientific knowledge. In so doing, I make novel conceptual contributions to sociological understandings of survey research and polling.