Polling with an Agenda

the AZEL PERSPECTIVE Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 12

This Perspective was first published in 2015. Polling with an Agenda Poor Wording in Polls Often Results in Bad Data and Misleading Headlines Share Tweet Forward

If one tortures the data enough, it will confess to anything. I recalled this old adage of analytical work as I prepared to dispute the findings of a poll on US-Cuba policy changes conducted by the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. This poll is only one example of a widespread issue with polling in general. In its own words, the “survey looks at whether there is overall support for normalizing U.S. relations (or, engaging more directly) with Cuba…” It concludes that “Nationwide, 56 percent of respondents favor changing our Cuba policy…” Regrettably these purported findings have been uncritically retold by numerous news outlets and are parroted as a truism without judicious review or analysis. The heading in an article in the New York Times read “Majority of Americans Favor Ties with Cuba, Poll Finds.” Reuters echoes the heading in a similar article: “Majority of Americans favor closer U.S.-Cuba ties: poll.” Indeed, the survey’s colorful brochure subtitled, “A New Public Survey Supports Policy Change,” deliberately implies that Americans support a unilateral, unconditional change in US policy without concessions from the Cuban government. But there is nothing in the survey to support that conclusion; in fact, not a single question in the survey asks about the United States changing its Cuba policy without seeking concessions from the Cuban government. For example, the survey asks respondents if they support “normalizing relations or engaging more directly with Cuba.” This is a featureless question of the “would you be in favor of world peace?” variety and it is actually surprising that engagement is strongly favored by only 30 percent and somewhat favored by 26 percent — totaling the 56 percent cited above. It is disingenuous to present the answer to this question as evidence of support for a unilateral and unconditional change in US policy. But thematically, that is precisely what this survey does; it equates the desire for more effective policymaking with support for the abandonment of current policy without seeking any concessions from the other side. Suppose, for example, that we were to ask a more developed question using the reports own factual language: “The Castro government continues to repress liberties, abuse human rights, and, despite some openings, deny its citizens access to basic economic freedoms,” should the United States end its economic sanctions now without seeking any concessions from the Cuban government? Or: Should the United States unconditionally seek to normalize relations with Cuba even though the Cuban government refuses to return a U.S. Hellfire missile shipped to Spain for a NATO exercise that mysteriously ended up in the hands of the Cuban government? Or: Do you favor a unilateral, unconditional elimination of economic sanctions or do you favor a process of negotiations that would lead to concessions from the Cuban government? Questions of this level of specificity would be required to support the logical leaps regarding policy implications advocated in Atlantic Council and other reports. But I suspect the answers would not support the report’s conclusions. The Atlantic Council is a reputable organization, and it commissioned experienced pollsters for this report. To their credit, Peter Schechter, director of the Latin American Center responsible for the survey, graciously invited me to be a panelist in the Miami presentation of the report, knowing that I would be very critical. Why did the Atlantic Council not see these issues when extrapolating conclusions way outside the data scope of the survey questions? Why did the Council produce what appears to be a “push poll” designed to elicit a predetermined result pushing an ideological agenda? Perhaps an explanation can be found in a revealing parapraxis, or slip of the pen, I came across while researching their work. In the Atlantic Council’s web page promoting the Cuba poll, there is a sentence that makes reference to the United States’ “financial blockade” (of Cuba). Experienced Cuba watchers will recognize immediately that the word “blockade,” when making reference to the US embargo, is the term used only by the Cuban government and by regime sympathizers. “Blockade” is an inaccurate and politically charged term that elicits the imagery of US Navy ships blocking shipping lanes to Cuba. It is not a term that would be used by anyone seeking to establish objectivity. How did this term end up in the Atlantic Council’s work — a Freudian slip? Please let us know if you  this article. This article was originally published in English in the Miami Herald and in Spanish in El Nuevo Herald.   José Azel, Ph.D. José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies as a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami and has published extensively on Cuba related topics. In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami.  Dr. Azel is author of Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, published in March 2010 and of Pedazos y Vacios, a collection of poems he wrote as a young exile in the 1960's. José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They cycled St. James Way (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary. They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast. Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them.  Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro. Books by Dr. José Azel Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future. Buy now   Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish. Buy now

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