Rationale

Since Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet published their seminal 1940 Erie study, elections have been a central research topic, connecting political science, sociology, communication, and public opinion research. As Elihu Katz and Yael Warshel note, this is probably because "election studies are good for science". Elections offer us an opportunity to explore, in a heightened context, questions relating to individual and public choice, media effects, political parties, public opinion dynamics and more. Together with possible insights on such processes, election studies offer societies the opportunity to understand specific elections and their results. We love to conduct and read election research, but we still lack a clear understanding of the answers to lingering questions such as what decides an election? What issues will dominate an election campaign? Do campaigns matter?  Why do journalists cover elections the way they do? Does this coverage help voters make up their minds?  How should pollsters minimize errors in election predictions? Does publication of polls impact public opinion, campaign contributors, opinion leaders or journalists? And do election results actually matter for public policy?

More than 70 countries worldwide are expected to hold national elections in 2007, and many more have held national and local elections in 2006 (including Canada, Israel, Italy, the Palestinian Territories, Mexico and more). All of these offer us the opportunity to advance our understanding of the interaction between public opinion, communication and elections, and as a result, to better prepare for designing election research in the future (with an eye towards the 2008 US presidential elections and the 2009 European elections).

The seminar is intended bring together scholars with a historical, sociological, political science or communications science background, using a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, who present their research and discuss issues relating to public opinion, communication and elections.

And what better place to hold an elections seminar than in Israel – a politically charged society? In the past 11 years Israelis have gone to the polls five times for national elections. Furthermore, Jerusalem is a focal point for one more polity – the Palestinian National Authority. Indeed, in 2006 Jerusalem was the only city in the world in which two separate national elections were held -- Israeli and Palestinian.

The seminar is dedicated to the memory of Seymour Martin Lipset, a pioneering public opinion scholar and a former WAPOR president whose work had a tremendous influence on our understating of public opinion, communication and elections.

We are looking forward to four days of stimulating discussion in both formal and informal environment. The seminar will be an opportunity for participants to get to know other members of their intellectual community, and to work together to further crystallize theory and methodology in research on public opinion, communication and elections.