Preface and Introduction to the Second Edition of “The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes up his Mind in a Presidential Election Campaign”

This translation contains an introduction to the second edition of a book written by Paul Lazarsfeld and his co-authors (Lazarsfeld P.F., Berelson B., Gaudet H. The People’s Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1948.), which became an important benchmark for the development of the methodology of sociological sample surveys, and which marked the emergence of a new method – “panel surveys”. This new method opened up unprecedented opportunities for transitioning from simply registering the public opinion at any given moment, utilizing a series of surveys each time with the participation of new respondents, towards tracking the emergence, shifts and dissociation of certain opinions, ideas and behavior patterns on an individual level. Thereby in contrast to static evaluation a new model had been proposed, “a disciplined and limited kind of dynamic research”, which its authors associated with the long-term development of all social sciences.