A letter to Prof. Martin Gilens

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Dear Prof. Gilens,

My name is Yoram Gat.

I recently became aware of your new paper “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens ” expanding on your previous work (“Inequality and democratic responsiveness”, 2005).

I see the findings of this work, as I presume you do, as confirming the widespread public sentiment, consistently measured in many opinion polls and expressed for example in the 2011 “Occupy” protests, that the American system does not represent the majority of Americans (“the 99%”). I also presume that the American system is not unique in this respect: 2011 has seen protest around the world reflecting similar sentiments in other societies governed by similar systems.
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Filed under: Academia, Action, Elections, Opinion polling, Proposals, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Gilens and Page: Average citizens have no political influence

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Keith McDonnell and Terry Bouricius wrote to point out the following.

Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page have a new paper titled “Testing theories of American politics: elites, interest Groups, and average citizens”. The paper continues the work of Gilens analyzing the correlation between public opinion and policy (see his 2005 paper “Inequality and democratic responsiveness” and a book on the same theme, Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America).

The previous work found that any correlation between public sentiments and policy is completely mediated by elite opinion (where “elite” is defined as top decile of income). The new paper adds to the analysis the position of interest groups and again finds that elites dominate policy making. The abstract is as follows:

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.

Filed under: Academia, Books, Elections, Opinion polling, Participation | 5 Comments »

Top-down or bottom-up? Sinister interests – vs – the median voter strategy

Posted on April 2, 2014 by keithsutherland

For some time I’ve been puzzled as to why empirical political scientists and normative political theorists have taken up antithetical positions on what has to be the central issue of democratic politics – who rules?. In the former community there is widespread agreement that the demos has kratos – elected politicians are obliged to formulate policies that are designed to attract the support of the ‘median’ voter. Political theorists, however (along with their colleagues in media studies), in so far as they are interested in the topic at all, view this as little more than a confidence trick, designed to conceal the identity of the shadowy ‘sinister interests’ who are really pulling the strings of power. Given that political scientists and political theorists are both housed in the same faculties, and drink their cappuccinos in the same common rooms, why should they come to such diametrically opposed conclusions?
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Filed under: Academia, Opinion polling, Theory | 17 Comments »

Economic Juries — whatever next?

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Conall Boyle

Daniel McFadden of UC Berkley produced a paper in 2011 which is mostly about what he calls Economic Juries. This is just like the German CJs that we have heard about previously from Antoine Vergne which were tasked with deciding whether to go ahead with new public infrastructure projects. So it’s interesting to see economists picking up on this idea.

McFadden’s paper has the anodyne title The Human Side of Mechanism Design, and you can read the paper on my website www.conallboyle.com

I found it the paper his website, but academics could obtain it from Athens. McFadden is one of the better guys, an economist who understands a bit about real humans.

The main ‘mechanism’ he investigates is the use of a jury to decide issues of public spending. Apart from a passing reference to deciding if a new park should be established at Boulder, Colorado, no actual examples of Economic Juries are given. But the theoretical reasons for using an EJ, they methods that could be used to inform them and elicit their real opinions are explored — in other words can a jury work? can it decide correctly? can it evade the human failings of bias, framing, short-termism etc. etc.?

Warning! This paper is a bit wonkish (to use  Krugman’s phrase).

So CJs (or EJs to use McFadden’s term): They would be an alternative to the democratic, elected representatives deciding. Would EJs work better? At what? Discovering the General Will perhaps???

Filed under: Applications, Juries, Opinion polling, Participation, Theory | 3 Comments »

Rasmussen: 43% Say Random Choices From Phone Book Better Than Current Congress

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Rasumussen has results for a new round of their occasional survey measuring support for sortition (they don’t quite phrase it this way):

With positive ratings for Congress at an all-time low, it may come as no surprise that a plurality of voters nationwide believes a group of people randomly selected from a telephone book would do a better job than the current legislators.

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Filed under: Elections, Opinion polling, Sortition | 16 Comments »

The San Francisco Chronicle: Fishkin promoting a citizens advisory council

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Yoram Gat

Lois Kazakoff, Chronicle Columnist, writes:

Concerned by California’s faltering government, a coalition of eight nonprofit good government groups conducted an experiment in June. They invited 435 Californians of every stripe from every corner of the state, from every political persuasion to spend three days in a Torrance hotel deliberating 30 proposals for government reform. The coalition raised $1 million to cover their travel costs.

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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 8 Comments »

Americans’ approval of Congress is at all time low: 9%

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Yoram Gat

A New York Times/CBS opinion poll finds that only 9% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, and only 10% feel that they can “trust the government in Washington to do what is right”. Both of those numbers are the lowest on record.

Filed under: Elections, Opinion polling, Press | 1 Comment »

Fishkin: How to Fix California’s Democracy Crisis

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Prof. James Fishkin has an op-ed piece in the New York Times:

One hundred years ago today, California voters added the ballot initiative to the State Constitution, allowing citizens to use petitions to bring proposed statutes and constitutional amendments for a public vote.

In the article Fishkin entwines two themes. On the one hand, according to Fishkin, multiple cycles of legislation via the initiative system have encumbered California with various laws that cannot be overturned by the legislature, and make California “virtually ungovernable”. He cites the two-thirds rule for raising taxes, mandatory funds allocation (40% to education), the “three strikes law” and term limits for legislators. (He also originally cited a two-thirds rule for passing the budget – this reference was removed from the article since last year Proposition 25 eliminated this rule in favor of passage by regular majority.)

The other theme is the troubles with the Proposition system itself – supposedly the cause for the passage of the problematic laws.
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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 25 Comments »

Poll finds most Americans think their government is a plutocracy

Posted on July 18, 2011 by Yoram Gat

A poll taken in May asked some pointed questions about who people feel controls government and benefits from its policies. The answers were in line with previous findings.


CBS News Poll. May 20-23, 2011. N=1,020 adults nationwide.

“How much say do you think people like yourself have about what the government does: a good deal, some, or not much?”

A good deal Some Not much Unsure
% 9 21 69 1

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Filed under: Opinion polling | Leave a comment »

newDemocracy

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Yoram Gat

newDemocracy is an Australian website that introduces itself as follows:

Citizens are seeking Parliaments that are less adversarial and less short term in outlook. The newdemocracy Foundation researches and publishes alternative democratic methods that seek to deliver this. We pursue alternatives more likely to identify common ground, end the continuous campaign, and return representatives to focus on issues, not opinion polls.
We don’t need better politicians. We need a better system.
Read about these options here, and get involved.

Under “Alternatives”, newDemocracy presents various ideas, including “Demarchy” – following John Burnheim and Brian Martin, “A Senate Drawn by Lot” – following Alex Zakaras and linking to a post by Keith Sutherland on this blog, and “The Popular Branch” – following Ethan Leib.

The force behind the website is apparently Luca Belgiorno-Nettis. The website also lists various luminaries among its supporters including Prof. Lyn Carson.

One item that I find particularly valuable is the slogan mentioned in one of the entries: Don’t Vote – It Only Encourages Them!

Filed under: Opinion polling, Participation, Proposals, Sortition | 3 Comments »

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