When the People Say Yes and the Leaders Say No
Does the state of public opinion on a public policy issue create obligations for political leaders, obligations they ignore at their peril? This is an issue being debated in the United States right now about a specific public policy controversy – gun control – but the core issue applies everywhere. In the specific case of the United States, many readers will know that there was an attempt to pass legislation requiring background checks before you can buy guns online or at gun shows. The legislation was blocked in the US Senate in spite of the fact that opinion polls say again and again that 90 per cent of Americans polled support the measure. So, the question is being asked and debated: how can 90% of the people support a measure and it does not become law? Very often the question is asked with real heat. Now, we are not going to get into the Byzantine complexities of American politics. What I am interested in is bringing to your attention what professional political scientists who blog have been saying about the core, universally relevant issue: does the state of public opinion create unavoidable obligations for political leaders?
In a couple of blog posts Jonathan Bernstein (he writes the excellent A Plain Blog about Politics) offers the following insights:
In a previous 
My neighbor, who is 44, just suffered a heart attack and underwent triple bypass surgery. His wife, with two young children, was understandably in a state of shock. We rallied around with home-cooked heart-healthy meals and helped with exercise. My family stepped up because we knew that our neighbors, without close relatives locally, could use our help and support.
In a Washington Post article that Dr. Qasem and I wrote entitled 
A few weeks ago, the Economist provided an interesting take on social media, the Arab Spring, and the Reformation era. The article, 
Our Top Ten Blog Posts by Readership in 2011
Social networks have been a hot topic in the past year, not least because of the buzz around the Oscar-winning film about the founding of Facebook. Even in countries with relatively low internet connectivity, use of social networking sites is on the rise – just ask Timor-Leste’s President José Ramos Horta and his 378 Facebook friends. But even before the internet empowered us to connect and communicate at the speed of a whim, we have all lived fully immersed in social networks. Social networks are the links between family and friends, classmates and teammates, coworkers and colleagues, enemies and ‘frenemies’. They are the relationships – around 150 meaningful ones, according to Dunbar’s number – that feed and bound our choices and actions, provide us with emotional sustenance and sounding boards, and provide structure to our lives. But beyond their intrinsic value, what do these connections mean – for individuals, for communities, and for development?
A lesson in coalition building comes to us from Egypt via the 
When it comes to use of social media in development, development institutions remind me of lumbering elephants walking down the autobahn. In any other sphere, development organizations would not be at such a disadvantage. We have been building roads for ever. There has not been any fundamental change in the technology of building roads. Development organizations learnt slowly but well about development challenges in various sectors and are now legitimate experts in these areas. All the same the title of “knowledge institutions” is a bit hard to swallow. The reason, probably somewhat unfair, is that knowledge today, for most people is intimately tied to technology, social media too is viewed as a medium for knowledge, much like the network of roads and highways are a medium for commerce. 
As a follow up to 
I came across a small, but interesting online effort to raise donations for an organization that works to improve child literacy in Laos. Called 
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has joined the ranks of politicians in