Will the South Do It Again?

South Polls Will the South Do It Again? by John Shelton Reed In his presidential address to the American Association for Public Opinion Research, which he titled "The Obligation of the 1950 Pollster to the 1984 Historian," the distinguished survey researcher Paul F. Lazarsfeld suggested that the study of public opinion can be advanced by looking at questions about things that are not currently hot issues. If these questions should become issues, we can see how public opinion takes shape; if they never become issues, perhaps we can begin to understand why not. With Lazarsfeld's advice in mind, the Southern Focus Poll, conducted twice yearly by the University of North Carolina's Institute for Research in Social Science, has been asking questions about whether the South would be better off as a separate country. It sometimes seems that secessionist movements are a feature of almost every other nation in the world, after all, and in the U.S., independence for the South was a very hot issue not all that long ago. Three surveys in the early 1990s asked the question, "Do you agree or disagree that, if it could be done without war, the South would be better off as a separate country today?" March 1992October 1992 March 1993 Southern respondents: Agree (%)8 1214 Disagree (%)86 7979 Total number polled(818) (745)(859) Nonsouthern respondents: Agree (%)5 9 Disagree (%)* 8781 Total number polled(478)(446) * March 1992 survey was of southern respondents only. On the face of it, these data suggest that about one southerner in nine (and one nonsoutherner in fourteen) thought southern independence would be a good idea, with another 8 percent or so undecided. But survey researchers have observed that what they call "acquiescence"—a tendency simply to agree with the interviewer—can strongly influence responses, especially to questions respondents haven't really thought about. Such acquiescence appears to be at work in this case. When the wording of the question was reversed, so that "agree" meant opposition to independence, the percentage in favor of separation decreased somewhat—in the South from an average of 11 percent in the first three surveys to an average of 8 percent in the last two: 268Southern Cultures Do you agree or disagree that the South is better off as part of the United States than it would be as a separate country?____________________________________________ October 1993October 1994 Southern respondents: Agree (%)9286 Disagree (%)5 10 Total number polled(892)(934) Nonsouthern respondents: Agree (%)9185 Disagree (%)3 9 Total number polled(447)(476) Although both wordings reveal increasing support (from 8 to 14 percent in 1992-93 with the first question, and from 5 to 10 percent in 1993-94 with the second), surely the most striking finding is the high level of opposition and the absence of any difference between regional respondents. When the question was asked, in fact, the great majority of southern respondents did not believe the South would be better off as a separate country. They were almost as likely as nonsoutherners to believe this, and on two occasions when they were asked about the strength of their opinions, most said they believe it strongly: March 1992: If it could be done without war, the South would be better off as a separate country [asked only of southern respondents]. Strongly agree (%)3 Agree (%)2 Slightly agree (%)3 Not sure (%)5 Slightly disagree (%)6 Disagree (%)18 Strongly disagree (%)63 Total number polled(818) October 1994: The South is better off as part of the United States than it would be as a separate country. SouthernNonsouthern respondentsrespondents Strongly agree (%) 7675 Agree (%) 1011 Don't know (%) 4 6 Disagree (%) 4 3 Strongly disagree (%) 6 6 Total number polled___________________(934)__________________(476)_______ We can pool surveys that asked the same question to examine the correlates of support for southern independence. The first column in the table below is based on the first three surveys, where "agree" meant support. The second column is based on the last South Polls 269 two, where "disagree" was the secessionist response. The average, in the third column, can be viewed as an estimate of the "true" level of support, net of acquiescence. Data presented here...