Elites and Public Opinion in Areas of High Social

Elites and Public Opinion in Areas of High Social Stratification

Despite the hard facts of racial discrimination and dum living in the United States, the shocking contrast in the material conditions of life between the masses of the poor and the privileged few in underdeveloped areas seldom fails to jolt the visiting American. Although the visitor is usually protected from the more distressing evidences of long-standing and rigid social stratification in the host country, he is almost sure to feel a lurking sense of guilt at the same time that he experiences the new gratifications accompanying the expansion of personal services and deferences bestowed upon him in the new setting.

The public opinion pollster is familiar with the concept of class; he routinely anticipates and seldom fails to find differences in poll responses according to socio-economic level. But implicit in the whole concept of large- scale opinion polling is the notion of an informed and thinking public whose opinions have relevance for policy decisions of one kind or another. More important, perhaps, is the underlying premise that every man's opinion has some worth and that every man has the right to be heard. The pollster often seems bent as much on proving that all men do have something to say on most issues as on simply investigating opinions. There has been reluctance to accept the fact of an inert public with respect to some issues, notwithstanding poll evidence revealing broad sectors of apathy and ignorance even in so- called advanced countries.

Survey research in new areas, characterized by persisting patterns of sharp social differentiation, has strained to achieve "national" sampling almost as a goal in itself. In spite of the extremely high cost of field work in remote and isolated towns or semi-rural areas and despite the repeated experi- ence of finding total ignorance regarding all but the most parochial concerns among such respondents, the tendency has been to stretch budgets to the limit in order to achieve breadth of coverage rather than to explore ways in which knowledge of the social structure and the flow of communications can be used to supplement survey research methods.

* International Research Associates, Inc., New York City, and Associate Guest Editor of the Quarterly's special issue on Studies in Polifical Com.munication, Vol. X X , 1956, No. 1.

350 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY

U. S. OPINION LEADERS AND FOREIGN ELITES

In recent years, survey research in the United States has become sensi- tized to the problems of personal influence and social stratification in the shaping of opinions.' But the opinion leader that has evolved in the United States research literature is an elite person, if at all, only in a very restricted sense. The opinion leader operates almost exclusively among his peers. He differs from those he influences chiefly in being better informed and more interested, sometimes only with respect to some rather narrow subject mat- ter. Summing up work in this area in a recent article in this Quarterly, Elihu Katz comments, "Opinion leaders and the people whom they influence are very much alike and typically belong to the same primary groups of family, friends, and co- worker^."^

The concentration on face-to-face contacts and the tracing of effects through intimate networks of interpersonal communication have served to narrow the social space brought into focus by these researches. Although the term "opinion leader" has been used loosely as a tag for any communications elite or even for any upper status group presumed to be "influential," it can be seen that the label is inappropriate in application to influences on opinions exerted across powerful class barriers or over considerable social distances. The concept, as it has been developed, applies much more to horizontat rather than vertical sources of influence.

The opinions of leaders were studied systematically as part of a national opinion poll in the United States in the recent Fund for the Republic's survey of attitudes toward Cornmuni~m.~ Such studies, in which special samplings, with the same instrument, are taken simultaneously from among persons occupying socially recognized positions of leadership, as well as with cross- sections of the public, had been carried out abroad even before this time. Early in 1953, International Research Associates had probed into the attitudes toward international affairs, of sub-samples of journalists, university profes- sors, professionals, and political figures, along with a cross-section of residents in Santiago, the capital of Chile. A later study on use of mass media in the same country also used this approach profitably.

However, valuable as these coincidental soundings of leader and mass opinions can be, they leave many crucial questions unanswered. They serve to document differences between leaders and the public at large (e.g., Stouf- fer's finding that community leaders were more tolerant of non-conformity than their fellow townspeople) but add little to our knowledge about

1 See especially the section on "Political Communication and Social Structure i n the United States" in the Spring 1956 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly.

2Elihu Katz, "The Two-Step Flow of Communication: An Up-to-Date Report on an Hypothesis," Public Opinion Quarterly, Spring 1957.

Samuel A. Stouffer, Communism, Confoumity, and Civil Liberties, Doubleday and Com- pany, Garden City, New York, 1955.

ELITES AND PUBLIC OPINION 351

how, if at all, such leaders guide opinion on public issues. The question of whether leader groups are "ahead," "behind," or simply at odds or out of touch with mass opinion or behavior, is left undetermined.

An elaborate experimental design set up by International Research Asso- ciates in 1952 to test the effectiveness of a group exchange of community leaders came closer to the core of these problems. In that study, not only were exchangees interviewed before and after their sojourn in the United States, but groups of their close associates, as well as moss-sections in their home communities, were also interviewed on both occasions. The principal objective of the design was to provide accurate measures of attitude change among the leaders and associates, and to make sure that these changes did not simply reflect variations in the general climate of opinion. Still, this approach af- forded an opportunity to relate empirically changes in leader attitudes to changes among close associates and to shifts in over-all public sentiment.

The many-fronted study of communications regarding the issue of tariff policy that is being carried out by the Research Program in International Communication at M.I.T.'s Center for International Studies is probably closest in spirit to the kind of research that seems especially appropriate, if not indispensable, for the study of opinion formation in heavily stratified societies in which large sectors of the public are effectively disfranchised. The rapid changes in these newly developing areas-the displacement of traditional elites, the introduction of new means of communication, and the mobilization of rural and urban masses along new political lines-make it especially imperative that polling techniques be applied judiciously apd that they be backed up with careful study of the intricate processes by which opinion is shaped, propagated, and made politically effective. In societies where social cleavages remain sharp, it becomes a crucial aspect of the prob- lem to identify elites and to uncover the patterns of communication among elites and between particular elites and the population at large.

THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF ELITES

The shift from traditional to technical, from ascriptive to achievement standards in elite formation in world areas, until recently bound by traditional values, has been noted re~eatedly.~ The shift represents, in part, simply a rejection of stratification which is non-functional according to new canons. But in most areas, both traditional and technical or scientific elites continue to function side-by-side, allied for some objectives and at cross-purposes for others. The lines of cleavage and the interests of the several elites present in each society are far from clear; there is overlap and there is contradiction in the men and in the values operative in the several elite spheres. But even

4 S. F. Nadel, "The Concept of Social Elites," The International Social Science Bulletin, Vol. VIII, No. 3, 1956.


where the base of recruitment and the value standards governing elites have shown certain stability, time and changing economic and political conditions have brought marked changes in the functions served by particular elites, especially with regard to communications.

This point will be illustrated from materials gathered by the writer during a year spent in Chile studying political movements among University students there. Some historical perspective on the changing role of a particular elite group in political communications is provided by a comparison of three generations of political action among students in the University of Chile! A brief sketch of the major characteristics of the student organization at three points in time (1918-1922, 1936-1940, and 1956-1957) will show how changes, chiefly in the balance of political power in the nation, modified radi- cally the role of students as political communicators.

THE AGITATORS (1918-1922)

The Student Federation of Chile (Fech), the organization of students in the University of Chile in Santiago, had its beginnings in 1906. Early activities centered around the cultural improvement of members-lectures, discus-sion, and reading groups. This was soon extended to the education of workers, who had independently launched small programs of self-improvement around the time the Fech was born. Medical, legal, and dental service centers for the needy were also established. In the early years there were occasional clashes between students and government authorities, but it was not until around 1918 that the Fech took on the combative attitude of permanent criticism that characterized its action during this period of the "agitators."

The main activity of the University student organization in the years from 1918 to 1922 was that of agitation and propaganda. This is the "great man" era of the Fech in which the organization bears many of the classic stigmata of the charismatic mass movement. The keynotes were a complete repudiation of the past, an attitude of intransigent criticism, a claim to omni- competence-all of these validated in terms of broad, humanitarian principles that for students overrode all claims to legitimacy of the old order. It was a time of personalism in the leadership, of instable and vague organizational lines, of similarly vague definitions of membership and its obligations, of relative indifference to economic and administrative problems.

Most importantly, the action of students was autonomous wnd outwardly directed. Students rejected the guidance or tutelage of political parties, old and new. They did not take over the direction of the labor movement, but thousands of workmen were introduced by students in University classrooms and union meeting halls to the new gospels of redemption circulating

6Thii project was undertaken as a doctoral thesis in the Department of Social Relations of Harvard University. Financial support was received from the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation as well as from the University of Chile.

353 ELITES AND PUBLIC OPINION

throughout the world. Each week, several thousand copies of Claridad, the combative Fech organ, circulated among a broad public in the capital and in the provinces as well. Claridad, which called itself "a magazine of sociol- ogy, art and criticism," filled its pages with excerpts from the writings of European (especially French) socialists and anarchists. Anything that smacked of protest or attacked existing institutions was snapped up. Stu- dents were innovators and disseminators of new ideas. They were not only concerned with protest against existing injustice; they sought to give a broad theoretical and philosophical justification to Fech action and belief, and to establish close personal links with workers.

Never since that time have university students in Chile occupied so pres- tigeful a position vis-a-vis other elite groups in the nation. Though students have always maintained a sentimental identification with the working classes, seldom since then have university students mingled on such a broad basis and worked so closely with popular groups.

It was a time of economic crisis and dramatic political change. The de- cline of nitrate prices and production after World War I had dealt a hard blow to the nation. The dominance at the polls of a traditional land-holding aristocracy allied with a prosperous industrial class was being challenged for the first time by a discontented middle class and incipiently organizing labor groups. Students stepped into the van of the movement for change, adding a note of intellectual ferment and disinterested youthful ardor to the clamor for economic and political reform.

THE PARTY FAITHFUL (1936-1940)

Without a doubt the most important change in the situation of action for university students in Chile between 1920 and this period was the emergence of powerful Communist and Socialist parties. The parallel development in Chile of a strong Nazi movement and a liberal Catholic position, in part as a reaction to the dramatic gains by the Marxist Left, provided the framework for a new political struggle that was perhaps most sharply crystallized within the University. When, in 1936, Chile became the testing ground in South America for the Popular Front objective of winning for Communism the collaboration of democratic, worker, and bourgeois forces, there was reproduced within the nation on a small scale the global conflict of ideas and power drives that came to a head in the Second World War. This same struggle was reproduced in microcosm within the student organization.

The analogy is not to be carried too far, for the progress of this contest and its outcome at these different levels were far from identical. The triumph of the Popular Front formula in Chile did not produce Communist-Socialist unity within the University; on the contrary, it stiffened competition between the two groups among students as it did within the labor movement. The emergence of the new parties and the successes of the Popular Front had


two chief effects on the Student Federation: (1) The Fech became internally cross-cut by political factions more responsive to partisan interest than to Fech values in themselves; (2) the Fech was displaced as an innovating and orienting force providing political leadership and guidance to labor groups.

With the dominance of the student organization by the youth wings of political parties came a shift in attitudes and practice that produced marked differences between the 1920 Fech and its 1940 counterpart. Partisan political motives and interests dominated all Fech action. The Fech became an object, a tool to be won, rather than a set of values to be served. Manipulativeness and indifference to long-range objectives were tacitly accepted in a leadership that was guided by expedience. In the absence of any unifying and moving statement of aims, and in the face of the gradual alienation of the unpoliti- cized mass of students, two sets of values were agitated to enlist the support of students who were not responsive to partisan appeals. One of these was the banner of University reform and student welfare; the second was a vague set of canons inherited from earlier student generations. These broadly called on students to take a serious view regarding their own intellectual growth as well as the development of the University, and to cry out cour- ageously against social and political injustice wherever it existed.

The Fech turned inwardly, consumed by the internal struggle for dominance by the political cliques within it. It sought to compensate its weak and strictly accessory external role with increased attention to student needs and University problems. There was a definite lowering of sights in the scope of Fech aims and activities, a sharp cutback in the areas in which students seemed disposed or prepared to initiate action independently.

Within this broad panorama of change there was also continuity. The basic motives inspiring popular and student protest in Chile were still dis- tressingly present. Chile had made only a slow and partial recovery since the financial crash of 1929. Until the victory of the Popular Front at the polls in 1938, labor and political leaders opposing the government suffered syste- matic harassment. The Federation was not inert; it was out on the streets in political demonstrations. It took its place beside labor in strikes and mass meetings. But the Fech of the Popular Front era, outside of the University, was a follower, not a leader. There was no Claridad bringing the voice of students to thousands in Santiago and the provinces each week. Externally, the voice of the students was heard as a hollow and dissonant echoing of tired slogans. The Left in Chile had acquired more powerful and more authoritative voices than those of university youths.

THE POLITICAL ACTIVISTS VERSUS THE GUILDSMEN (1956-1957)

The contemporary Fech remains an eminently political body. Every mem- ber of the Fech Executive is a prominent leader in the university wing of

355 ELITES AND PUBLIC OPINION

some political party. Almost all delegates to the Fech assembly run for ofice under the banner of some political group and are themselves militants or known sympathizers with some political party. A long-standing division among students over whether the student organization should be primarily concerned with university or with national, political and social problems has become the major line of cleavage among students. The guildsmen (gremialistas) accuse the political activists of being subservient to party and of betraying student interests to advance party causes. They maintain that the Fech should give priority to problems affecting the welfare of students and the improvement of the University. The ~olitical function of the student organization, they assert, should be limited to making pronouncements on broad issues and ~ r inc i~ l e s . The ~olitical activists counter with the charge that guildists merely seek to evade their political responsibilities. Gremialis-tas, they say, pretend to ignore the fact that in a country like Chile all problems are in the final analysis ~olitical. It is the aim of guildsmen, assert the activists, to emasculate the student movement by directing its energies exclusively to the selfish concern for student welfare.

Actually, both of these positions are "political." That is, the polarity between guildsmen and activists corresponds roughly to that between political Right and Left in the University. It also corresponds roughly to that between Catholics and secularists (laicos). Basically, the struggle among political factions for control of the Fech is still going on. This struggle is fundamentally a contest for control over a given instrument of propaganda and agitation whose usefulness extends beyond the University. Discussion in the Fech is carried on in an atmosphere of mutual disbelief and mistrust. Once the opportunity for propagandizing is exhausted, interest in most issues wanes sharply. Whatever student leaders may say about their aims, in practice their goal is simply to capture and manipulate the voice of the student organization in behalf of their own political group.

The situation has changed with respect to the Popular Front days. The Leftist parties which were then in their heyday are now riddled with factions, harassed by the government, and to a large extent discredited? The labor movement, which in 1936 had formed a powerful confederation that joined in the Popular Front, is today, and for similar reasons, in the same infirm state as the parties of the Left. Thus, despite the weak and internally divided condition of the Fech, in 1957it made international headlines for the first time in several years. In April of that year, what began as a series of student demonstrations against price increases ended in a day of bloody dis-

6This situation had changed somewhat by the Fall of 1958. The repeal of the Law for the Defense of Democracy in August of 1958 restored the voting rights of Chilean Communists. In the September 1958 Presidential election, Communists and Socialists polled the second largest plurality, about 28 per cent of the popular vote. The winning Liberal candidate won about 31 per cent of the vote.

356 PUBLIC OPINION OUARTERLY

orders in which at least a score were killed, more than a hundred injured, and the downtown area of the capital, Santiago, was for several hours at the mercy of an enraged and destructive mob. This is not the place to go into the details of those events, but they serve to confirm the tendency for students to move into the leadership vacuum left by a crippled government opposition in times of crisis. In 1956-1957 Chile was in the throes of acute inflation which the government was attempting to combat with a program of harsh and unpopular measures. It was, to a great extent, impotence of labor and political leaders in the defense of the interests of popular groups that again brought students to the foreground.

ELITES AND PUBLIC OPINION

This kind of historical perspective serves to underscore the dangers of facile generalization regarding the characteristics of elite groups and their typical behavior in the sphere of political communication. The changing rela- tionship of particular elites to the mass public, as well as to other leadership groups, must be taken into account in any effort to understand the processes of opinion formation in countries where the mass habitually expects and seeks guidance from select leadership groups. It has been suggested that there are significant shifts in the attention of the mass from one elite to another with changing political and economic conditions. It is also true that the com- plexity of modern issues and the fact that they are so far removed from the immediate concerns of mass publics in emergent nations means that communication about such issues from leaders often appears to be entirely "non- political" to the uninitiated observer. Investigation of problems such as these may well serve the survey researcher to greater advantage than the immediate extension of poll-type studies to representative samplings of whole nations.

Documents

Elites and Public Opinion in Areas of High Social