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. We report 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.

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Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens

Study in administration

Narratives are increasingly subject to empirical study in a wide variety of disciplines. However, in public policy, narratives are thought of almost exclusively as a poststructural concept outside the realm of empirical study. In this paper, after reviewing the major literature on narratives, we argue that policy narratives can be studied using systematic empirical approaches and introduce a “Narrative Policy Framework” (NPF) for elaboration and empirical testing. The NPF defines narrative structure and narrative content. We then discuss narrative at the micro level of analysis and examine how narratives impact individual attitudes and hence aggregate public opinion. Similarly, we examine strategies for the studying of group and elite behavior using the NPF. We conclude with seven hypotheses for researchers interested in elaborating the framework.

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A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?

Academic observers and public intellectuals frequently criticize mass email action alerts as “slacktivism” or “clicktivism,” arguing that the lowered transaction costs of the medium produce a novel form of activism that carries with it hidden costs and dangers for the public sphere. This article challenges those claims, relying on a combination of personal observation within the advocacy community and on a new quantitative dataset of advocacy group email activity to articulate three points. First, that mass emails are functionally equivalent to the photocopied and faxed petitions and postcards of “offline” activism, and represent a difference-of-degree rather than a difference-in-kind. Second, that such low-quality, high-volume actions are a single tactic in the strategic repertoire of advocacy groups, thus reducing cause for concern about their limited effect in isolation. Third, that the empirical reality of email activation practices has little in common with the dire predictions offered by common critiques. The article responds to a previous Policy & Internet article: “The Case Against Mass E-mails.” 1 (1).

Online Political Mobilization from the Advocacy Group's Perspective: Looking Beyond Clicktivism

This essay identifies the empirical facts about lobbying which are generally agreed upon in the literature. It then discusses challenges to empirical research in lobbying and provides examples of empirical methods that can be employed to overcome these challenges — with an emphasis on statistical measurement, identification, and casual inference. The essay then discusses the advantages, disadvantages, and effective use of the main types of data available for research in lobbying. It closes by discussing a number of open questions for researchers in the field and avenues for future work to advance the empirical research in lobbying.

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David J. Randall

Papers

Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why

The politics of Medicaid contracting and privatization