Survey on Iranians points out Interesting Findings (Updated)
Posted by KamangirJul 11
The recent survey done by Terror Free Tomorrow points out promising, and at the same time very interesting, points. The survey “was conducted by telephone from June 5th to June 18th, 2007, with 1,000 interviews proportionally distributed according to the population covering all 30 provinces of Iran.” It is rather ironic that the pollsters remind us that “The last poll to ask similar controversial questions was conducted in September 2003 by Abbas Abdi inside Iran, who was imprisoned as a result.” These are a few highlights from the report. I do recommend reading the whole piece (pdf, I have also uploaded it here).
Developing nuclear weapons was seen as a very important priority for the Iranian government by only 29% of Iranians. By contrast, 88% of Iranians considered improving the Iranian economy as a very important priority for their government. Rather, 80% of Iranians favor Iran providing full inspections and a guarantee not to develop or possess nuclear weapons in return for outside aid. A majority of Iranians (52%) also favor the development of nuclear weapons and believe that the people of Iran would live in a safer world if Iran possessed nuclear weapons. However, support for nuclear weapons drops to below 17% if Iran were to receive outside assistance in return for full inspections and a guarantee not to have nuclear weapons.
Even more telling, however, over 79% of Iranians support a democratic system instead, where the Supreme Leader, along with all leaders, can be chosen and replaced by a free and direct vote of the people.
Any questions why the regime denies a free election?
Update: Antony disagrees.
During my recent visit to Iran, I also noted a great deal of anger towards the regime, but little enthusiasm for regime change, outside interference or military action.
I’d like to point out that Zogby’s poll of Iranians found roughly the call for more economic opportunities and less nuclear ambition.
Results seem about right. I haven’t checked out their method too closely but I really doubt many Iranians would answer such questions on the phone.
I think that many Iranians will be weary of truthfully answering questions, particularly the ones concerning international politics (Hizbullah, USA ) and nuclear development if they have different views from the ones promoted by the government. They would not only be careful during interviews over the phone but even with one-to-one contact (say, door to door questioning). On the other hand, I think, questions regarding economy are (more or less) safe.
For me also interesting was the rate of refusal to some questions.For example Question 5 “oil money on the table of the people” and question 20 regarding supreme leader and religious principles had 9.2% and 5.5% refusal rate. I think that both questions had so called “key words” in them.
Anyway, it was quite interesting poll.
[...] reports according to the recent survey done by Terror Free Tomorrow , developing nuclear weapons was seen [...]
First, thank you for providing the link, as you said it is interesting. I like to know what you mean by “promising”? What do you conclude from the results?
The following are my comments regarding the survey:
1) The sample is too small to reach to a reliable conclusion. (although it is better than nothing!)
2) Interviewing by phone is not trustable, specially in Iran.
3) Some questions are “ill-defined” (let say biased), such that they might lead to false conclusion. In other word, the designer of the
survey can draw his/her favorable conclusion from the answer. For example, “providing full inspections and a guarantee not to develop
or possess nuclear weapons” is completely defined, but “outside aid” is not clearly defined, i.e., it is not clear for the interviewee for what amount and what sort of “outside aid” he/she is ready to accept “providing full…”.
4) The Executive Summary is biased. Certainly, one can conclude from question Q20 that the interviewees are in favor of a more open
society, however, I cannot find any evidence from the data which imply a majority (even a weak majority) of interviewees have
favorable stand toward the US as expressed by “The popular… open to … and the United States…”. In fact, the percentage of those
who oppose the US is larger than the supporters as indicated in Q9e and Q12b.
5) An important observation is the positive correlation between the answers and the general foreign policy of the government, e.g., unfavorable view toward the US and (specifically) Israel, favorable
view toward China and Russia, and considerable support for Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi Shiites.
How the Iranians feel toward America is irrelevant to the miserable condition and the abject poverty that they have to live under despite vast riches of oil.
[...] that 79% of the population supports direct election of all leaders as is reported in the report by Terror Free Tomorrow? A bit… but did it surprise me that the survey showed an overall moderate bent to the responders? [...]