Fwd: qotd: Gilens and Page: Average citizens have little impact on public policy

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Subject: qotd: Gilens and Page: Average citizens have little impact on
public policy
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 06:42:38 -0700
From: Don McCanne <don@mccanne.org>
To: Quote-of-the-Day <quote-of-the-day@mccanne.org>



Perspectives on Politics
forthcoming Fall 2014

April 9, 2014
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and
Average Citizens
By Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page

Abstract

Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics –
which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral
Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, and two types of interest group
pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism – offers
different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence
over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized
interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one
or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to
test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within
a single statistical model. This paper reports on an effort to do so,
using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for
1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized
groups representing business interests have substantial independent
impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based
interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results
provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination
and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of
Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

American Democracy?

Each of our four theoretical traditions (Majoritarian Electoral
Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, Majoritarian Interest Group
Pluralism, and Biased Pluralism) emphasizes different sets of actors as
critical in determining U.S. policy outcomes, and each tradition has
engendered a large empirical literature that seems to show a particular
set of actors to be highly influential. Yet nearly all the empirical
evidence has been essentially bivariate. Until very recently it has not
been possible to test these theories against each other in a systematic,
quantitative fashion.

By directly pitting the predictions of ideal-type theories against each
other within a single statistical model (using a unique data set that
includes imperfect but useful measures of the key independent variables
for nearly two thousand policy issues), we have been able to produce
some striking findings. One is the nearly total failure of "median
voter" and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories. When the
preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest
groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American
appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically
non-significant impact upon public policy.

Interest groups do have substantial independent impacts on policy, and a
few groups (particularly labor unions) represent average citizens' views
reasonably well. But the interest group system as a whole does not.
Over-all, net interest group alignments are not significantly related to
the preferences of average citizens. The net alignments of the most
influential, business oriented groups are negatively related to the
average citizen's wishes. So existing interest groups do not serve
effectively as transmission belts for the wishes of the populace as a whole.

Furthermore, the preferences of economic elites (as measured by our
proxy, the preferences of "affluent" citizens) have far more independent
impact upon policy change than the preferences of average citizens do.
To be sure, this does not mean that ordinary citizens always lose out;
they fairly often get the policies they favor, but only because those
policies happen also to be preferred by the economically elite citizens
who wield the actual influence.

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly
constitute troubling news for advocates of "populistic" democracy, who
want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy
preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings
indicate, the majority does not rule -- at least not in the causal sense
of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens
disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they
generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built
into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of
Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

A possible objection to populistic democracy is that average citizens
are inattentive to politics and ignorant about public policy; why should
we worry if their poorly informed preferences do not influence policy
making? Perhaps economic elites and interest group leaders enjoy greater
policy expertise than the average citizen does. Perhaps they know better
which policies will benefit everyone, and perhaps they seek the common
good, rather than selfish ends, when deciding which policies to support.

But we tend to doubt it. We believe instead that – collectively –
ordinary citizens generally know their own values and interests pretty
well, and that their expressed policy preferences are worthy of respect.
Moreover, we are not so sure about the informational advantages of
elites. Yes, detailed policy knowledge tends to rise with income and
status. Surely wealthy Americans and corporate executives tend to know a
lot about tax and regulatory policies that directly affect them. But how
much do they know about the human impact of Social Security, Medicare,
Food Stamps, or unemployment insurance, none of which is likely to be
crucial to their own well-being? Most important, we see no reason to
think that informational expertise is always accompanied by an
inclination to transcend one's own interests or a determination to work
for the common good.

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for
theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities
of the American public actually have little influence over the policies
our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to
democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and
association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we
believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business
organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's
claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf

****


Comment by Don McCanne

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page present historical data that show that
average Americans, even when represented by majoritarian interest
groups, have negligible influence in shaping public policy. In sharp
contrast, the economic elites and their business-oriented interest
groups wield tremendous influence in public policy.

Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez have shown that the flow of income to
the top has resulted in a concentration of wealth that is not only
self-sustaining but likely to perpetuate the transfer of more wealth to
the wealthiest, at a cost to everyone else.

This combination - a concentration of wealth at the top with the
domination of policymaking by the economic elite, does not bode well for
new policies that would be established for the common good.

In health care reform, the common good would have been served by
improving coverage through the removal of financial barriers to care and
by expanding coverage to everyone. Instead, the interests of the
economic elite were served by increasing the market for private
insurance products that, for the majority, increased financial barriers
to care and reduced choice of providers, while leaving tens of millions
of the most vulnerable without any coverage. More wealth moves to the
passive investors at the top, while the deterioration in coverage
requires average Americans to spend more out-of-pocket through higher
deductibles.

We desperately need a well-designed single payer system if we want
everyone to have the health care that they should have. At this point it
appears that the economic elites are not going to allow single payer,
and we will have no say.

Even though our Constitution laid the plans for a democracy, by fiat we
now have a plutarchy (plutocratic oligarchy). Although Gilens and Page
have shown that our Majoritarian Electoral Democracy has "only a
minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public
policy," perhaps the people can still change that. Although recent
history demonstrates citizen inertia, that does not necessarily lock in
the future. Think of Social Security, Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act.

A decade ago, in a book review for the NEJM on "Universal Coverage: The
Elusive Quest for National Health Insurance" by Rick Mayes, I wrote the
following: "Mayes does give us hope. Although he acknowledges that
critical junctures are rare, he notes that they do occur, especially in
response to unmet social needs. Perhaps the deterioration in insurance
coverage that has taken place may have brought us much closer to our
next critical juncture than most of us realize."
(http://www.pnhp.org/news/2005/july/rick-mayes-on-the-elusive-quest-for-national-health-insurance)

So what can we do to reverse the process under which "policymaking is
dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of
affluent Americans"? Will citizen action through education, coalitions
and grassroots efforts be adequate? In spite of such ongoing efforts, we
have certainly fallen short so far.

History has taken us to a point wherein the economic elite rules. Can
the people revitalize democracy, or is the wealthy ruling class too
powerful? If the elite are not responsive to our needs, will our nation
be ripe for civil unrest? At the moment, citizen inertia continues to
empower the economic elite.