ONW
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Regardless of your political leanings and knowing that we were all pretty much aware of this, seeing this trend quantified is eye opening.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
"A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favor) is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favor) is adopted about 45% of the time."
"On the other hand: 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 US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it."
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/G...ens and Page 2014-Testing Theories 3-7-14.pdf
This is the paper published by the researchers.
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence."
"A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favor) is adopted only about 18% of the time," they write, "while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favor) is adopted about 45% of the time."
"On the other hand: 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 US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it."
http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/G...ens and Page 2014-Testing Theories 3-7-14.pdf
This is the paper published by the researchers.