ABSTRACT
1 Public policymakers must often make do with no more than crude measurements of public attitudes on many issues. The difficulties that policymakers commonly face are well illustrated by the recent experience of a Federal interagency committee charged with studying present and proposed policies affecting the use and conservation of material resources. This chapter reviews such problems as those of defining the issues, defining the appropriate publics, studying the complexities of the issues, and obtaining empirical data. The chapter ends with a discussion on how the lack of good information on public attitudes affects decision-making.
