"The impressive array of social scientific studies in Who Gets Represented? should set the agenda for the next generation of research on public opinion and political inequality in the United States. This research ought to further untangle the mechanisms by which the rich and other identifiable...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

Weitere Verfasser:	Enns, Peter (Peter K.) (HerausgeberIn), Wlezien, Christopher (HerausgeberIn)
Format:	Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	New York : Russell Sage Foundation, [2011]
Schriftenreihe:	Book collections on Project MUSE. UPCC book collections on Project MUSE. Political Science and Policy Studies.
Schlagworte:	Majorities. Social classes > Political aspects. Representative government and representation. Majorité (Droit constitutionnel) Classes sociales > Aspect politique. Gouvernement représentatif. POLITICAL SCIENCE > General. Social classes > Political aspects Majorities Representative government and representation Social classes
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	"The impressive array of social scientific studies in Who Gets Represented? should set the agenda for the next generation of research on public opinion and political inequality in the United States. This research ought to further untangle the mechanisms by which the rich and other identifiable constituencies have persistently benefitted more than others from government policies--even as these policies have been responsive over time to the American public writ large."--Robert Y. Shapiro, professor of political science, Columbia University. "This is a truly important book, containing cutting-edge scholarship on one of the most pressing questions of our era. The authors do not settle for easy answers, but instead collectively puzzle over the question of whether rising inequality in American society is in fact connected to the way democratic institutions link citizens to their government. The result is a complex yet critical debate that will reshape the way social scientists think about issues of political representation."--Jeff Manza, professor and chair, Department of Sociology, New York University. While it is often assumed that policymakers favor the interests of some citizens at the expense of others, it is not always evident when and how groups' interests differ or what it means when they do. Who Gets Represented? challenges the usual assumption that the preferences of any one group--women, African Americans, or the middle class--are incompatible with the preferences of other groups. The book analyzes differences across income, education, race, and partisan groups and investigates whether and how differences in group opinion matter with regard to political representation. Part I examines opinions among social and racial groups. Marisa Abrajano and Keith T. Poole develop a new methodology for matching respondents in different surveys to show that racial and ethnic groups do not, as previously thought, predictably embrace similar policy positions. Analysts often assume, for example, that Latinos and African Americans share similar opinions on social and political matters, or that Asians and African Americans rarely do. Not always so, Abrajano and Poole find that African Americans' level of support for increased federal spending on the provision of goods and services coincides more closely with Asian Americans than with Latinos. Contributor Katherine Cramer Walsh finds that, although preferences on healthcare policy and government intervention vary little between lower and higher socioeconomic groups, different income groups can maintain the same policy preferences for different reasons. Opposition to a newly passed statute, for example, may galvanize upper-income people to become more involved in a political system they view as basically viable while lower-income people may simply feel that their needs are not being met. Part II turns to how group preferences translate into policy outputs, with a focus on differences in representation between income groups. James N. Druckman and Lawrence R. Jacobs analyze Ronald Reagan's response to private polling data during his presidency and show how different electorally significant groups--Republicans, the wealthy, religious conservatives--wielded disproportionate influence on Reagan's policy positions. Christopher Wlezien and Stuart N. Soroka show that politicians' responsiveness to the opinions of different income groups can be surprisingly even-handed. Wesley Hu --Book Jacket.
Beschreibung:	1 online resource
Bibliographie:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9781610447225 1610447220 0871542420 9780871542427