Testing Inferences about American Politics: A Review of the “Oligarchy” Result:

Research & Politics

Omar S Bashir¹ 

关键词: American politics;    representation;    inequality;    quantitative methods;    replication;   

DOI  :  10.1177/2053168015608896

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

In a well-publicized study, Gilens and Page argue that economic elites and business interest groups exert strong influence on US government policy while average citizens have virtually no influence at all. Their conclusions are drawn from a model which is said to reveal the causal impact of each group’s preferences. It is shown here that the test on which the original study is based is prone to underestimating the impact of citizens at the 50th income percentile by a wide margin. In addition, descriptive analysis of the authors’ dataset reveals that average Americans have received their preferred policy outcome roughly as often as elites have when the two groups have disagreed with each other. Evidence that average citizens are effectively ignored by the policy process may not be as strong as is suggested by the authors.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC-ND