If you’re not busy and are interested in democratic outcomes, you should really read this important piece by Ben Page and Martin Gilens.

The authors test four preeminent theories of democratic influence in which different actors have disproportionate influence in the American political system (average voters, economic elites, general interest groups and business oriented interest groups). Here’s the takeaway:

Economic elite policy preferences strongly correlate with “average” citizen policy preferences, but aggregated interest groups preferences do not. Business interest group influence does not always correlate with economic elite influence (economic elites want all government spending reduced and business interest groups want spending on their areas of influence).

When it comes of policy outcomes, economic elites and interest groups have the most influence…

a proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favor) is adopted only about 18 percent of the time, while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favor) is adopted about 45 percent of the time. Similarly, when support for policy change is low among interest groups (with five groups strongly opposed and none in favor) the probability of that policy change occurring is only .16, but the probability rises to .47 when interest groups are strongly favorable (see the bottom two panels of Figure 1.)

This is an empirical confirmation of my “NCAA Tournament” view of American politics. The “3 seed” usually beats the “14th seed,” but not always. A good way of measuring democratic health is how often “bracket busters” occur.