Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
2014/09/01 by Martin Gilens, Benjamin I. Page · 3 voices · 109 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies #Social Policy and Reform Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1537592714001595
openalex publication_date 2014/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
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. We report 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.
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Discussions
- FWIW, the will of the citizens, as reflected both by voting and by expressed preference, has a statistically zero-magnitude influence on public policy in the United States. The economic elite and spe [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]
- and for those who might be relatively new to this line of discourse, none of this is new,, it's part of a line of critical study & research, which is converging on this assessment, e.g.: doi.org/10.1 [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
- Just as one starting point, see Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, ‘Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens’, in the September 2014 issue of Perspectives [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]
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