Re: Understanding the US-2
Posted: 26 Apr 2014 21:18
How US is turning into an oligarchy.
Martin Gilens of Princeton, well known for "Affluence and Influence"
has a new paper "Testing Theories of American Policies"
Martin Gilens of Princeton, well known for "Affluence and Influence"
http://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Influen ... 0691153973... America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and elections.
With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not.
has a new paper "Testing Theories of American Policies"
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilen ... 3-7-14.pdfMultivariate 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.