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Economic Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness: A Vicious Circle?
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Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness*
Martin Gilens
Politics Department
Princeton University
This paper reports findings from a project that examines the extent to which different social groups find their policy preferences reflected in actual government policy and the variation in these patterns across time and policy domains. For example, when Americans with low and high incomes disagree, are policy outcomes more likely to reflect the preferences of affluent Americans? If so, does the advantage of more affluent Americans differ over time (e.g., depending on which party controls the congress and presidency) or across policy domains? Similarly, are Republicans or Democrats in the population more likely to get the policies they prefer when their party is in control of national political institutions? Because my database contains policy preferences broken down by income, education, partisanship, sex, race, region, religion, and union/non-union status, I will be able to address a multitude of questions concerning government responsiveness to public preferences. In the following pages I use data on public preferences and policy outcomes based on 1,935 national survey questions from 1981 through 2002 and restrict my attention to income as a moderating factor in the preference/policy link. Overall, I find a fairly strong relationship between what the public wants and what the government does, though with a considerable bias toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle income Americans. The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society. Prepared for the 2005 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1-4. * For helpful comments I am indebted to Larry Bartels, Robert Shapiro, Theda Skocpol, Sidney Verba, and participants at the Conference on Inequality and American Democracy sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University. Marty Cohen, Jason Conwell, Raymond Hicks, Shana Kushner, Naomi Murakawa, Andrea Vanacore, and Mark West provided exemplary research assistance. Financial support was provided by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Committee for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Princeton University, and the Institute for Social Science Research and the Academic Senate at UCLA.
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Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness*
Martin Gilens
Politics Department
Princeton University
This paper reports findings from a project that examines the extent to which different social
groups find their policy preferences reflected in actual government policy and the variation in
these patterns across time and policy domains. For example, when Americans with low and high
incomes disagree, are policy outcomes more likely to reflect the preferences of affluent
Americans? If so, does the advantage of more affluent Americans differ over time (e.g.,
depending on which party controls the congress and presidency) or across policy domains?
Similarly, are Republicans or Democrats in the population more likely to get the policies they
prefer when their party is in control of national political institutions? Because my database
contains policy preferences broken down by income, education, partisanship, sex, race, region,
religion, and union/non-union status, I will be able to address a multitude of questions
concerning government responsiveness to public preferences.
In the following pages I use data on public preferences and policy outcomes based on 1,935
national survey questions from 1981 through 2002 and restrict my attention to income as a
moderating factor in the preference/policy link. Overall, I find a fairly strong relationship
between what the public wants and what the government does, though with a considerable bias
toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in
their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most
affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle income
Americans. The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different
incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear.
Although perfect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this
magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society.
Prepared for the 2005 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, D.C., September 1-4.
* For helpful comments I am indebted to Larry Bartels, Robert Shapiro, Theda Skocpol, Sidney
Verba, and participants at the Conference on Inequality and American Democracy sponsored by
the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, Princeton University. Marty Cohen, Jason
Conwell, Raymond Hicks, Shana Kushner, Naomi Murakawa, Andrea Vanacore, and Mark West
provided exemplary research assistance. Financial support was provided by the Russell Sage
Foundation, the Committee for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Princeton
University, and the Institute for Social Science Research and the Academic Senate at UCLA.
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