Thursday
Oct082009
Iran: A Telephone Poll on Politics You Can Absolutely Trust (Trust Us)
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 10:55
The Latest from Iran (8 October): Will There Be a Fight?
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We avoided the media flutter last month over a poll by World Public Opinion of Iranian attitudes, not because we objected to the purported findings --- the most provocative that "eight in 10 Iranians say they consider [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to be the country's legitimate president" --- but because WPO's rationalisation could persuade us that this was a poll carried out under "neutral" conditions. A telephone call from the United States, coming out of the blue, to a household in Iran, made amidst post-election conflict in which there is a presumption that phone conversations may be under surveillance....hmm, didn't strike us as being optimal for getting full-and-frank answers.
We were going to let a wobbly survey fall of its own accord. But then Persian Umpire came along and put everything in perspective for us:
I wanted to mention the report by worldpublicopinion.org when it was first published but didn’t get a chance. Since it was referred to by [Dr Seyed Mohammad] Marandi – considered by many here to be on the academic front of the mouthpiece industry – in a CNN discussion on Sunday, it might be a good time to revisit the topic. The report stirred up controversy here, causing us much vexation and digestive upset.
In all honesty, I don’t know anything about polls and statistics, I am even forgetting my basic math, but to accept the results of this poll is tantamount to believing that the post-election chaos, on the streets and in the corridors of politics, must have only been a figment of our imaginations.
I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so let’s give worldpublicopinion.org A+ for effort. As for publishing the results of the effort, maybe they should have considered the health hazards and slept on it. So, they left me with no choice but to correct parts of the poll and repeat it. Unlike the original survey, the refusal rate for this one was a little less than 52%, so you can take this as solid information.
How much confidence do you have in US President Barack Obama to do the right thing regarding world affairs?
I found the answer consistent with the WPO report: 16%. Then last night I asked myself the question and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I got on the internet to find out what “World Affairs” really meant.
Six hours later, I realized I wasn’t any wiser. After perusing the 38,700,000 results and getting familiar with terms such as “socioeconomic”, “geopolitical”, “interdependence”, “trade”, “foreign policy”, “global economy” and many more, I think I have to refine the question and call all those people again. In fact the question may need to be broken into two, because I spent another six hours thinking about “doing the right thing”, which led me to concepts like “ethics”, “political philosophy”, “interests”, “utilitarianism”, and “eye of the beholder”.
In light of this development, I decided to leave the foreign stuff until I can further specify what I am asking these people.
Considering everything that has occurred before, during and after the elections, do you consider Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran?
Of the 50% who answered the question, 12.5% said they belonged to either the Basij or the Sepah [Revolutionary Guard], and 87.5% said “considering everything that has occurred before, during and especially after the elections” they are willing to consider Ahmadinejad as higher than President if he wanted them too....
Note: one respondent misunderstood “legitimate” as meaning “bastard”, for which he is in trouble as his phone was wiretapped.
In general, how satisfied are you with the process by which the authorities are elected in this country?
Now this question in the report were very interesting to me, but I though it required further probing. Here, I initially got the same numbers: a very large majority (81%) said they are satisfied with the general process, though only 40% said they were very satisfied. Sixteen percent say they are not satisfied. But when respondents were asked if they were very very satisfied, 20% said they were, and then only 10% said they were very very very satisfied.
My assistants are still on the phone with this question, incrementally adding a “very”....I will publish the results once the question is over.
In Iran how free do you think people are to express controversial political views, without fear of being harassed or punished?
To me this question should have been binary. Free or not free. Combining “how free” with “without fear” was just confusing. Let us look at the response with a 71% rating in the WPO report: “I am somewhat free to express, without fear.” Perhaps it is just me but I don’t understand what this phrase means. I can handle “I am free to express without fear”, or the opposite “I am not free to express without fear.” I can also process “I am somewhat free to express” and its opposite. Let me say it another way: I am either free of fear to say something, or not. I cannot be “somewhat” free of that fear.
Before going insane, I decided to rephrase the question:
Do you agree with Mr. Ahmadinejad that Iranians have “almost complete freedom”?
Lo and behold, 100% said “yes”.
Are you comfortable answering silly political questions over the phone in Iran?
I squeezed in this last but essential question to assess the reliability of my survey. 14% refused to answer because they were offended, 5% said they were comfortable, 50% said they were not comfortable and 31% responded with a single tut. I marked them as "freaked out and afraid even to say so".
Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
We avoided the media flutter last month over a poll by World Public Opinion of Iranian attitudes, not because we objected to the purported findings --- the most provocative that "eight in 10 Iranians say they consider [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] to be the country's legitimate president" --- but because WPO's rationalisation could persuade us that this was a poll carried out under "neutral" conditions. A telephone call from the United States, coming out of the blue, to a household in Iran, made amidst post-election conflict in which there is a presumption that phone conversations may be under surveillance....hmm, didn't strike us as being optimal for getting full-and-frank answers.We were going to let a wobbly survey fall of its own accord. But then Persian Umpire came along and put everything in perspective for us:
I wanted to mention the report by worldpublicopinion.org when it was first published but didn’t get a chance. Since it was referred to by [Dr Seyed Mohammad] Marandi – considered by many here to be on the academic front of the mouthpiece industry – in a CNN discussion on Sunday, it might be a good time to revisit the topic. The report stirred up controversy here, causing us much vexation and digestive upset.
In all honesty, I don’t know anything about polls and statistics, I am even forgetting my basic math, but to accept the results of this poll is tantamount to believing that the post-election chaos, on the streets and in the corridors of politics, must have only been a figment of our imaginations.
I don’t want to hurt their feelings, so let’s give worldpublicopinion.org A+ for effort. As for publishing the results of the effort, maybe they should have considered the health hazards and slept on it. So, they left me with no choice but to correct parts of the poll and repeat it. Unlike the original survey, the refusal rate for this one was a little less than 52%, so you can take this as solid information.
How much confidence do you have in US President Barack Obama to do the right thing regarding world affairs?
I found the answer consistent with the WPO report: 16%. Then last night I asked myself the question and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I got on the internet to find out what “World Affairs” really meant.
Six hours later, I realized I wasn’t any wiser. After perusing the 38,700,000 results and getting familiar with terms such as “socioeconomic”, “geopolitical”, “interdependence”, “trade”, “foreign policy”, “global economy” and many more, I think I have to refine the question and call all those people again. In fact the question may need to be broken into two, because I spent another six hours thinking about “doing the right thing”, which led me to concepts like “ethics”, “political philosophy”, “interests”, “utilitarianism”, and “eye of the beholder”.
In light of this development, I decided to leave the foreign stuff until I can further specify what I am asking these people.
Considering everything that has occurred before, during and after the elections, do you consider Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran?
Of the 50% who answered the question, 12.5% said they belonged to either the Basij or the Sepah [Revolutionary Guard], and 87.5% said “considering everything that has occurred before, during and especially after the elections” they are willing to consider Ahmadinejad as higher than President if he wanted them too....
Note: one respondent misunderstood “legitimate” as meaning “bastard”, for which he is in trouble as his phone was wiretapped.
In general, how satisfied are you with the process by which the authorities are elected in this country?
Now this question in the report were very interesting to me, but I though it required further probing. Here, I initially got the same numbers: a very large majority (81%) said they are satisfied with the general process, though only 40% said they were very satisfied. Sixteen percent say they are not satisfied. But when respondents were asked if they were very very satisfied, 20% said they were, and then only 10% said they were very very very satisfied.
My assistants are still on the phone with this question, incrementally adding a “very”....I will publish the results once the question is over.
In Iran how free do you think people are to express controversial political views, without fear of being harassed or punished?
To me this question should have been binary. Free or not free. Combining “how free” with “without fear” was just confusing. Let us look at the response with a 71% rating in the WPO report: “I am somewhat free to express, without fear.” Perhaps it is just me but I don’t understand what this phrase means. I can handle “I am free to express without fear”, or the opposite “I am not free to express without fear.” I can also process “I am somewhat free to express” and its opposite. Let me say it another way: I am either free of fear to say something, or not. I cannot be “somewhat” free of that fear.
Before going insane, I decided to rephrase the question:
Do you agree with Mr. Ahmadinejad that Iranians have “almost complete freedom”?
Lo and behold, 100% said “yes”.
Are you comfortable answering silly political questions over the phone in Iran?
I squeezed in this last but essential question to assess the reliability of my survey. 14% refused to answer because they were offended, 5% said they were comfortable, 50% said they were not comfortable and 31% responded with a single tut. I marked them as "freaked out and afraid even to say so".
Reader Comments (10)
"In all honesty, I don’t know anything about polls and statistics, I am even forgetting my basic math, but to accept the results of this poll is tantamount to believing that the post-election chaos, on the streets and in the corridors of politics, must have only been a figment of our imaginations."
No, not really. What it would mean is that 20% of Iran's population, or millions of people, do not accept Ahmadinejad as the country's legitimate president. That factor alone could certainly translate into post-election chaos and protests.
The blogger from Persian Umpire must be a really nice person because (s)he gives worldpublicopinion.org an A+ for effort. Unfortunately, effort is not enough. For example, if your employer writes in a reference letter that you "tried really hard to meet the requirements", this means that you have completely failed.
I think this study is just annoying because it provides a cheap argument for those people who (for whatever reason) want to believe that AN is without doubt the elected president of Iran.
@canuckistan It would certainly be interesting to know why AN never managed to mobilize his many supporters.
Polls BEFORE the election say that the majority of people WOULD vote for Ahmadinejad. Polls AFTER the election say that the majority of people DID vote for Ahmadinejad. Yet some people persist on claiming that he was elected fraudulently -- people who have an obvious bias and agenda against the Islamic republic (whether you agree with it or not, whether justified or not, it is still a bias) -- so isn't it about time to consider that the opponents do not really represent the average man on the street in Iran? After all, not one of the pundits forsaw Ahmadinejad's first election; not one of them foresaw the election of his predecesor Khatami, and the whole 1979 Islamic Revolution itself came as a big fat surprise. TIme to get a clue. We don't know what's going on in Iran, and we can't rely on exiles to tell us accurately what's going on either.
Hass,
Yes, yes, but did we make you smile?
S.
@Hass
I don't quite understand your arguments:
"Polls BEFORE the election say that the majority of people WOULD vote for Ahmadinejad."
What polls? The only one which seems to confirm this is the Terror Free Tomorrow study. However, it actually indicates a run-off between AN and Mousavi.
"Polls AFTER the election say that the majority of people DID vote for Ahmadinejad."
Again: the only indication is the World Public Opinion poll, which was conducted by phone - a major flaw.
"...isn’t it about time to consider that the opponents do not really represent the average man on the street in Iran?"
Indeed, nobody represents the average.
"After all, not one of the pundits forsaw Ahmadinejad’s first election"
Good to mention AN's first election. There are many indications that it may have been rigged as well.
"Not one of them foresaw the election of his predecesor Khatami."
As you mention Khatami: A large proportion of Khatami supporters must have voted for AN now (if he really won the election). Quite surprising, isn't it?
"We don’t know what’s going on in Iran..."
I agree, we can only try to figure it out.
Hilarious!
very A++ for Persian Umpire.
Hass, I'm with you. I vote for reason over fantasy any day. So, according to you, the rational thing to do is distrust Iranian exiles but trust an American pollster who conducted a poll from a neighboring country May 11-20 before Mousavi had emerged as a viable rival to Ahmadinejad and forget the fact that 52% of people in that same poll were uncommitted, and forget the fact that by Jun 12 the election landscape had turned upside down (& Mousavi et al could have drawn much of that 52% to their side, if not event some of Ahmadinejad's fans), and so continue to use this US pollster's old statistics to prove the miracle of the regime's vote count never mind that a % of the count was discounted even by the regime itself, and to use these same old same old statistics to disprove the opposition's claims that the figures didn't reflect their own surveys and polls that questioned, for instance, the outcome in Kurdistan and Luristan, just to name two mind-blowing outcomes that you'd have to be from Mars to believe I don't care where you're from or who you voted for.
And by the way, while making this circular (or is it spiral?) argument--I feel lost--muddy the ocean just a little but more by not distinguishing the opposition inside Iran from the exiles, because it's easier to hit someone on the head than give them a good argument.
Is the shortest distance between point A and point B still a straight line?
@ HASS
To believe that in a police state such as Iran, people respond to polls truthfully shows lack of understanding of charged political environment in Iran. In an environment where government can hang you because of your political views, do you really think people will trust a poll taker and will tell him/her how they plan to vote or that they voted for opposition candidates? I do not think so. Most likely many who were polled before and after election were mindful of their answer, not trusting the motive for such poll and thinking their answer might be used one day in court to conviction them. If you think this farfetched, then tell me why we hear, on daily basis, shutting down of one newspaper after another and daily arrest of newspaper editors, bloggers, reporters, teachers, professors, students, etc? After all, these people only guilt is their political view and their support for opposition.
Some courtesy toward Iranians who live outside Iran is appreciated. In a way they are like Palestinians, they are homeless.
@ HASS
To believe that in a police state such as Iran, people respond to polls truthfully shows lack of understanding of charged political environment in Iran. In an environment where government can hang you because of your political views, do you really think people will trust a poll taker and will tell him/her how they plan to vote or that they voted for opposition candidates? I do not think so. Most likely many who were polled before and after election were mindful of their answer, not trusting the motive for such poll and thinking their answer might be used in court one day to convict them. If you think this is farfetched, then please tell me why we hear, on daily basis, shutting down of one newspaper after another and daily arrest of newspaper editors, bloggers, reporters, teachers, professors, students, etc? After all, these people only guilt is their political view and their support for opposition.
Some courtesy toward Iranians who live outside Iran is appreciated. In a way they are like Palestinians, they are homeless.
I smell the taste of wine. see you! "We do not talk more that day. We stood up, shook his hand and eye lookedeach and so on. Bees were shut out, but came to backhesitatingly. wvobea wvobea - suprayouth.