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This passage talks about what policies are included, not how the respondents are recruited / how their answers are recorded.

twoodfin 12y ago
These were all presumably publicly available national polls, conducted by a variety of organizations using a variety of methods. Unfortunately, the origins of this data set are with Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America by Martin Gilens (one of the authors of this paper), and thus it's difficult to learn more about them without having the book on hand. I'd be interested to know if they only used non-partisan polls from national polling organizations (e.g. Gallup), as opposed to polls conducted under the auspices of an interest group.
- noobhacker 12y ago
  Thanks for the info. On the one hand I feel (emphasis on feel) like the conclusion is correct. But on the other hand, as a Political Scientist I have to treat this as a scientific endeavour and criticize its method regardless of its conclusion. And as a scientific work, this piece ranks lowly I think. There is very little theory, i.e. okay, even if the rich gets more influence, exactly why is that true? If it's because of campaign contribution law, we can test that thanks to change in campaign law. Plus, the people can always vote their representatives out of Congress -- why don't they? Is it because of a lack of transparency on their representatives' stand? Is it because campaign ads are so effective? Or even because that people don't really care enough? Anyhow, this paper may (or may not) report an intriguing empirical regularity. But what to make of it is not at all very clear.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    > But what to make of it is not at all very clear. One possibility is that the fairy tale of representative government is wrong, and that, because of both structural problems and money politics, we don't live in a representative system that deserves deference from the people. We're living on the rentiers' plantation. If that's true, inevitably the field servants will wonder "Why not burn it down?"
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    [Disclaimer: I read the (original) telegraph.co.uk link, but only started on the mod-altered link to the PDF.] The notion that "political science" is science is propaganda. (Which is how we'd see "political science" in the former USSR, because we're encouraged to see its ideological filters. Though of course not our own.) To act politically, the necessary principles of world affairs are close to the surface; it's not quantum physics. Anyway, a science of human affairs is currently (and perhaps in principle) intractable, just like a scientific analysis of any vaguely complex animal's actions. Unsurprising when capitalists dominate a capitalist society. That's the point. (Even if we did swallow the fake distinction between politics and economics.)
  - shudmeyer 12y ago
    consider the time period studied as well. that 20 year period was incredibly business-friendly, so it should be no surprise that policy outcomes matched business values at large. i wrote a longer response here (http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2379ny/study_reveals_how_often_americas_politicians_do/cguw8qs http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2379ny/study_revea...) but i know it won't get any views... would you mind giving me your feedback on that?

twoodfin 12y ago

These were all presumably publicly available national polls, conducted by a variety of organizations using a variety of methods. Unfortunately, the origins of this data set are with Affluence and Influence: Economic Inequality and Political Power in America by Martin Gilens (one of the authors of this paper), and thus it's difficult to learn more about them without having the book on hand. I'd be interested to know if they only used non-partisan polls from national polling organizations (e.g. Gallup), as opposed to polls conducted under the auspices of an interest group.

noobhacker 12y ago
Thanks for the info. On the one hand I feel (emphasis on feel) like the conclusion is correct. But on the other hand, as a Political Scientist I have to treat this as a scientific endeavour and criticize its method regardless of its conclusion. And as a scientific work, this piece ranks lowly I think. There is very little theory, i.e. okay, even if the rich gets more influence, exactly why is that true? If it's because of campaign contribution law, we can test that thanks to change in campaign law. Plus, the people can always vote their representatives out of Congress -- why don't they? Is it because of a lack of transparency on their representatives' stand? Is it because campaign ads are so effective? Or even because that people don't really care enough? Anyhow, this paper may (or may not) report an intriguing empirical regularity. But what to make of it is not at all very clear.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  > But what to make of it is not at all very clear. One possibility is that the fairy tale of representative government is wrong, and that, because of both structural problems and money politics, we don't live in a representative system that deserves deference from the people. We're living on the rentiers' plantation. If that's true, inevitably the field servants will wonder "Why not burn it down?"
- calibraxis 12y ago
  [Disclaimer: I read the (original) telegraph.co.uk link, but only started on the mod-altered link to the PDF.] The notion that "political science" is science is propaganda. (Which is how we'd see "political science" in the former USSR, because we're encouraged to see its ideological filters. Though of course not our own.) To act politically, the necessary principles of world affairs are close to the surface; it's not quantum physics. Anyway, a science of human affairs is currently (and perhaps in principle) intractable, just like a scientific analysis of any vaguely complex animal's actions. Unsurprising when capitalists dominate a capitalist society. That's the point. (Even if we did swallow the fake distinction between politics and economics.)
- shudmeyer 12y ago
  consider the time period studied as well. that 20 year period was incredibly business-friendly, so it should be no surprise that policy outcomes matched business values at large. i wrote a longer response here (http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2379ny/study_reveals_how_often_americas_politicians_do/cguw8qs http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2379ny/study_revea...) but i know it won't get any views... would you mind giving me your feedback on that?