Iranian Public Opinion on Nuclear Power and Economy Coursework

Introduction

This research was carried out in Iran by Terror Free Tomorrow, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that has conducted numerous research activities across many countries. The research covered several areas but mainly focused on Iranians’ views regarding their country’s nuclear ambitions, its economy, and its isolation from the West. Other research topics included the Israel-Palestine conflict, the war in Iraq, the Iranian system of government, and Iran’s relation to the US and the West. On the question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the research found out that nuclear arms were lowly considered important by Iranians. Indeed, they insist that the government should provide unlimited access for inspectors and give an assurance not to engage in the activity in exchange for foreign aid. The Iranians also willed to live in a democratic country open to the US and the West and vehemently opposed the current system of government, where the Supreme Leader governs in accordance to the religious principles and cannot be elected through citizen votes.

Sampling design

The sample used for the study was drawn from a random national sample of 1,000 Iranians aged 18 and above from June 5^th to 18^th, 2007. The population of the country during the research stood at 71.532 million persons. However, the sampling frame, i.e. those eligible for the study were approximately 51.5 million persons. The target sample was a random selection of Iranian citizens, both male, and female, and aged above 18 years. The sample was to cover all the 30 provinces of Iran with the number allocated to each province proportional to the province’s population.

Contacts from each province were randomly selected from telephone exchanges within each province by randomizing digits to generate telephone numbers. Both the starting point and households within each exchange were picked randomly with recognition of the fact that telephone numbers are unselectively given by the Iranian government and are a combination of both business and residential numbers. Respondents within each household were picked using the “Last Birthday” method.

The participants were contacted by telephone from a nearby country outside Iran. During the process of recruiting participants, 2,124 persons were contacted. Out of this number, 465 resulted in non-contacts while another 8 contact attempts resulted in non-eligible respondents as they were not Iranian citizens. Out of the remaining 1,651 successful contacts, 651 refused to participate in the research leading to a 60.6% response rate¹. The final sample used for the research was similar to that of official national population data from Iran in terms of demography. Telephone interviewing was employed instead of face-to-face interviews due to the political and social aspects that the latter entails. Face-to-face interviewing can be challenging for both the interviewers and interviewees: the former are at a high risk of prosecution and imprisonment while interviewing the latter poses some social considerations especially if they are women. In addition, Iran has a large landline telephone penetration of more than 90% and thus it was a cheaper alternative.

Conclusion

The overall sample used for the research, i.e. 1,000 individuals, was not representative of the population to which it was drawn. However, the researchers employed valid randomization procedures and this resulted in a sample that was demographically representative of the whole population.

Bibliography

Terror Free Tomorrow. “Polling Iranian Public Opinion: An Unprecedented Nationwide Survey of Iran.” Web.

Footnotes

1. Terror Free Tomorrow, “Polling Iranian Public Opinion: An Unprecedented Nationwide Survey of Iran,” Web.