Mass-based membership groups as an aggregate poorly represent public opinion.
Evidence
Some particular U.S. membership organizations— especially the AARP and labor unions—do tend to favor the same policies as average citizens. But other membership groups take stands that are unrelated (pro-life and pro-choice groups) or negatively related (gun owners) to what the average American wants. Some membership groups may reflect the views of corporate backers or their most affluent constituents. Others focus on issues on which the public is fairly evenly divided. Whatever the reasons, all mass-based groups taken together simply do not add up, in aggregate, to good representatives of the citizenry as a whole. Business-oriented groups do even worse, with a modest negative over-all correlation of -.10. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 81
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Large groups facing collective-action dilemmas cannot be trustworthy as groups. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 810
Related
- Large groups facing collective-action dilemmas cannot be trustworthy as groups. (similarity 0.80)
- Interest groups do not amplify majority policy preferences; business groups dominate despite opposing them. (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Large groups facing collective-action dilemmas cannot be trustworthy as groups.
#corroborates(0.72) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 810