Reliable Electoral Surveys as Source of Social Peace
Or How Their Absence in Iran Probably Permitted the Outbreak of the Current Political Crisis
Notions discussed :
Personal information sets allow a tremendous increase of knowledge about individuals, groups and societies.
Information sets are both sources and objects of conflict.
In Canada, electoral polls generally come from independent sources and are reliable. They are so redundant that many think that too many are published. But one could ask if this very redundancy does not help ensure social peace, despite a divided electorate?
In Iran, the electoral polls are remarkably unreliable, often censored and they systematically contradict each other in a grotesque fashion. I have no particular expertise in the politics or the history of Iran. However, the one expertise I have about the social role that information systems play in regard to individuals and populations leads me to state the following: if the Iranian people and political elites had shared and accepted the same depiction of existing opinions within the electorate, the present political crisis with its share of disruption, death and repression would probably never had been triggered as we witnessed.
Let’s be clear, there is indeed a strong and genuine desire for political and social reform within the Iranian population (as shown by one rare reliable survey). Historian demographer Emmanuel Todd repeated in the last few years that, with a very high literacy rate, especially among women who now give birth to only two children on average, Iran surely leans toward some form of secularization. And as clearly, this fundamental evolution faces resistance from powerful conservative institutions that do not hesitate to resort to repression. Sooner or later, confrontation was probable. However, it appears that the current events has been triggered from a mistrust of two types of handling of personal information: electoral opinion polls to start with, and the election process, as a result.
This misunderstanding appears even more disastrous in its consequences because despite the many indications of irregularities and fraud, it is possible that, in the end, the published election results of promoting the presidential election on Ahmadinejad Mousavi does correspond to the true will of a majority the Iranian electorate. Lire la suite »
Catégories : Observations
Mots clés: Canada, Elections, Information: source of conflicts, Information: source of knowledge, Iran, Opinion polls