London-based pollster pens book urging bigger role for public opinion

JONATHAN JUHA Updated: December 18, 2019, London Free Press

With decades of experience plumbing others’ opinions under his belt, London pollster and political scientist Kimble Ainslie says he believes in the “collective wisdom of the electorate.”

“People know what their interests are and that’s why their views are so important,” said Ainslie, chairperson of Nordex Research, a market research and public opinion polling company. “They can be tricked on the why question, for example, and various small sort of picayune issues of quantification . . . but on broad picture items, the public does know what they are talking about and they do know their own interests.” That’s why he advocates that, despite living in an increasingly polarized society also dealing with misinformation and fake news, public opinion should have a bigger role in shaping public policy and should be taken seriously. That’s the point he makes in his latest book, Selecting Rationality.

Kimble Ainslie In his book, Ainslie argues the ubiquity of polling makes it an important tool that can be used to easily transform public input into public policy, both big and small. This would allow for more civic engagement from the public and result in the public’s views and values being better represented in government. This “doesn’t happen because bureaucrats basically turn aside public opinion and politicians, once elected, tend to ignore the public and pursue their own interests,” he said. “Those two sectors alone are big obstacles to citizen sensitivity.” Ainslie also criticizes existing methods of public engagement, calling them too convenient and says they can fail to accurately gauge public sentiment on an issue. “Part of the problem is that public participation meetings are rarely recorded by state agencies,” he said. “The message of the electorate . . . becomes nothing.”

Published by Toronto-based Optimum Publishing International, Selecting Rationality can be found in London’s major bookstore, including Chapters and Indigo. jjuha@postmedia.com Twitter.com/JuhaatLFPress