New INET research shows once again that it’s large firms and the 1%—not the “median voter”—who drive U.S. policy
The idea that public opinion powers at least the broad direction of public policy in formally democratic countries like the United States has been an article of faith in both political science and public economics for generations.[i] Especially during the Cold War, direct tests of this hypothesis by social scientists were rare – indeed, questioning it was often considered un-American. But not long after the U.S. government dramatically ushered in a single payer insurance system for banks but not the rest of the population in 2008, long simmering doubts began to crystallize.
In 2014, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page drew on a data set originally compiled by Gilens for an earlier study of opinion change and policy. They scrutinized more than 1,700 cases stretching across more than twenty years that tracked public opinion about proposed policy changes at various levels of income and how policy responded. Their unsettling conclusion startled many: “Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all.”[ii] The pair reaffirmed Gilens’ assessment in an earlier study that knowing what high income Americans think matters a lot: If opinion shifts among those at the 90th percentile of income and above, changes in policy in the direction they want become far more likely.
In their new INET Working Paper, Shawn McGuire and Charles Delahunt look afresh at the data Gilens and Page relied upon. They reanalyze the data set using a technique derived from research into artificial intelligence and machine learning. The method involves combing through the evidence using so-called “random forests.”[iii] This approach is less encumbered with restrictive assumptions than the usual regression tools Gilens and Page and other scholars use. It is particularly helpful when data is sparse.
Their findings confirm Gilens and Page’s conclusions and likely admit of exciting extensions. We have all heard the Zen-like tease: What happens if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it? McGuire and Delahunt’s pioneering AI application now yields a high tech twist on this hoary query: What happens when the central hypothesis in political science and public economics – that public opinion is the mainspring of public policy in countries like the United States – falls in a random forest? Will social scientists hear the message and take it to heart or not?
I fear I already know the answer. Even in our new Gilded Age, when almost every day brings new testimony about the towering significance of big money in politics, I am sure Max Planck’s theory of scientific progress will prove right once again: not till the current crop of scholars have mostly departed the field will the disciplines update.
