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members (Griffin and Newman 2005a) and Senators (Griffin and Newman 2005b). However,
African Americans exert equal or even greater influence than whites on issues especially
salient to African Americans as a group. In this study, we ask “who governs” the ultimate
output of government actions—public policy—examining the relative influence that white and
African American citizens have on various national public policies. We are especially
interested to see whether our earlier findings that despite their minority status, African
Americans sometimes hold greater influence than the majority white population extend to the
realm of public policy. It is one thing to observe that a group of elected officials responds to
the preferences of an especially concerned constituency. It is quite another if the entire
machinery of government responds to a minority making up less than 15 percent of the
nation’s population.
Using measures of the public’s spending preferences and actual federal budget
appropriations from 1973 to 1995, we evaluate whether white Americans are more likely than
African Americans to have their preferences realized in policy outcomes. We also compare
the influence of racial groups across policy domains to see whether there are some areas in
which African Americans exert greater influence than whites. We find that whites generally
exert more influence over federal spending policy. However, answers to the “who governs”
question vary across issue domains. In limited issue areas that are particularly salient for
African Americans, this group appears to exert greater influence than whites. These results
are robust to a series of controls for general public mood and real- world conditions.
Convention