Political inequality is sustained more by defending existing structures than by driving change

Evidence

Even though this strain of thought has not been prevalent in recent research on the opinion-­policy link, the idea that political inequalities are maintained from protecting existing structures, rather than the capacity to drive change, has a long tradition in political thought. There is a straight line from Marx and Gramsci to C. Wright Mills and further on to this study. Scholars have emphasized how institutional rigidity tends to serve the interests of privileged groups. — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 34

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: an essay arguing that the left’s fixation on winning elections misses that power is entrenched in un-changeable veto architecture.
• DEEPTHINKING: Reframes the locus of political power from agenda-setting to structural inertia, which resists summary and reframes decades of representation research.