Toward an Operational Definition of Consensus

Authors

  • Ole R. Holsti

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1993.14.0.309-339

Abstract

Although “consensus” is a key concept in several social sciences, there is very little agreement on how it should be defined. That political philosophers and theorists who have pondered the extent and types of agreement necessary for effective political systems rarely specify the threshold for consensus is not surprising. But even students of voting behavior and public opinion, who use the term extensively, often fail to identify precise levels of agreement necessary to achieve consensus; among those who do, there is a lack of agreement on how high that level should be. This paper attempts to develop an operational definition of consensus based on the level of agreement across two groups-in this case, political parties. A 4x4 matrix yields six distinct levels of agreement ranging from “strong bipartisan consensus” to “strong partisan dissensus”. In order to account for variations in response options, four versions are described. Evidence from four nationwide surveys on the foreign policy attitudes of American opinion leaders-conducted in 1976, 1980, 1984 and 1988-is used to illustrate the scheme.

References

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Published

1993-11-01

Issue

Vol. 14: Fall 1993

Section

Articles

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