PUBLIC-OPINION AND ELECTORAL-BEHAVIOR - INTRODUCTION

As competitive elections have become more and more common around the w orld since the early 1980s, there has been a corresponding increase in public opinion research done for candidates and for political parties in those elections. When the results of this survey research are made available to scholars through national and international data banks, social scientists can analyse the data in far more detail, illuminatin g patterns of politics in their nations. Broadly, this enhances the de mocratic process and demonstrates once again the importance of social science research. As the essays in this volume make clear, accurate an d useful opinion research can be done in countries which were until re cently dictatorial, such as South Africa, while even in the oldest dem ocracies, such as Great Britain, pollsters still have a good deal to l earn in order to perfect their craft.