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Public Opinion (Political Science)
The aggregate attitudes and beliefs of a population. In democracies, public opinion holds great value for lawmakers in discerning what policy agendas are popular with the public and in understanding voting behavior. Government agencies and private organizations regularly run surveys to measure current trends in public thought. The origins of the concept of public opinion date back to philosophical arguments regarding its value among the ancient Greeks. Does the public know best how to govern a democracy, or should issues of governance be left to the most intelligent and talented people in society? The philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE) believed the former and Plato (427–347 BCE), the latter. Nearly a century later, the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) also reflected on its ...