The distribution of power resources shifts over time and between countries

Evidence

The power resources approach developed gradually since the late 1960s in debates with major strands of social scientific thought, such as structuralfunctionalism, ideas of pluralist industrial society generated by the logic of industrialism and modernization, different versions of neo-Marxism, and different approaches to the study of power. These various strands of thought all assume that the distribution of power in Western societies has been relatively stable, although they sometimes disagree on whether this distribution is relatively equal or grossly unequal. The power resources approach, in contrast, advances the hypothesis that the distribution of power resources varies, shifting over time and between countries. — Walter Korpi, The Iceberg of Power below the Surface, 3

Categorization

• XREF: This is the direct precondition for the reader’s project: if power resources are variable, they can be measured and regressed on policy outcomes the way Gilens & Page regress influence on income.
• DEFINE: Frames the entire power resources research program in contrast to the stable-distribution consensus it replaced.