Powerful business interest groups actively oppose average citizens’ policy preferences.

Evidence

The net alignments of the most influential, business-oriented groups are negatively related to the average citizen’s wishes. So existing interest groups do not serve effectively as transmission belts for the wishes of the populace as a whole. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 133

Categorization

• XREF: Speaks to the reader’s control-deficit instrument question: shows that actual interest-group influence channels are captured by elites and do not transmit average-citizen voice. — connects to: Organized interest-group stances do not substantially track average citizens’ preferences. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 76; Interest groups more often oppose than favor proposed policy changes. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 116; Interest groups do not amplify majority policy preferences; business groups dominate despite opposing them. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 125 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Business interest groups oppose policy changes less often than mass-based groups do. #contradicts (0.90)
• U.S. policy outcomes contradict majority preferences whenever elites or organized interests disagree #corroborates (0.90)
• Business and mass-based interest groups oppose proposed policy changes at similar rates #contradicts (0.85) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 152
• Majorities of citizens lose when elites and organized interests disagree. #corroborates (0.85) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 137
• Interest groups shape policy independent of citizen and elite preferences. #corroborates (0.85) — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics, 113
• Congruence between policy and affluent preferences cannot distinguish blocking from enacting power. #qualifies (0.80) — Mikael Persson and Anders Sundell, Blocking the Poor, 28
• Power holders resist social change that threatens their self-interests #expands (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 359
• Market discourse masks one group imposing its interests on everyone else #expands (0.72) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2081
• Subaltern forces resist rationalization intended to serve dominant interests. #exemplifies (0.72)