Affluent Americans shape policy adoption far more than interest-group support does.

Evidence

By contrast—again with other actors held constant— 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 . when interest groups are strongly favorable (refer to the bottom two panels of figure 1). — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 98

Categorization

• QUESTION: There’s a gap in the text — ‘rises to .’ — the probability value for strong interest-group favorability is unreadable. Worth chasing the underlying dataset to fill this in.
• XREF: connects to: Economic elites exert the largest independent influence on U.S. policy. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 91; Interest groups shape policy independent of citizen and elite preferences. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 113; Policy alignment favors high-income citizens mainly through blocking reform — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor: Status Quo Bias in…, 10 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Economic elites dominate US policy while average citizens exert little influence #corroborates (0.92) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 11
• Business interest groups wield roughly twice the policy influence of mass-based groups. #contradicts (0.85) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 121
• Policy outcomes modestly favor the side with greater interest-group resources. #contradicts (0.83) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 45
• U.S. policy responds to elites and interest groups, not the public. #corroborates (0.82) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 93
• Policy alignment favors high-income citizens mainly through blocking reform #expands (0.80) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 10
• Interest groups shape policy independent of citizen and elite preferences. #complicates (0.78) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 113
• Policy congruence favors the rich only where policy rarely changes #qualifies (0.78) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 84
• Blocking and pushing are observationally separable forms of affluent influence #expands (0.75) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 41
• Where reforms are feasible, wealthy citizens back change over the status quo #qualifies (0.74) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 85