Short reviews: The Voice of the People
Editor: Ijaz Shafi Gilani
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Pakistan
Public opinions are a regular feature of democracies around the world. They are used to frequently measure and understand popular views on current affairs, public policies, social practices and daily life. In Pakistan, opinion polls are hardly a recent phenomena.
The corporate sector has been using surveys for a long time. The public sector has been slow to catch up. Gallup Pakistan, a consulting firm that conducts such surveys, is the focus of this book. The book is a compilation of a number of surveys conducted by the organisation largely around the years 2007 till 2009. This was the exciting time of the Musharraf government and political upheaval. Most of the surveys conducted revolve around the issues of the time.
Ijaz Shafi Gilani founded Gallup Pakistan, an organisation that has no link to Gallup Inc USA but does its own independent research and surveys. Gilani has been associated in various capacities first as chairman of the international relations department of Quaid-e-Azam University, then in the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics and later with a number of think-tanks.
His book The Voice of the People discusses what Pakistanis think collectively on various local and international issues. It covers a diverse range of subjects from democracy to the war on terror.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 12th, 2010.
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