Business Power And Public
Opinion
Professor Mark Smith's study analyzes the tension between the political
power of business in America and the ability of citizens to get what
they want from government. Smith presents evidence that the times when
scholars have expected business to be most powerful and citizens to be
least likely to get what they want--the times when business is unified--instead
coincide with the opposite results. Rather than being undermined by business
unity, representative democracy becomes most responsive to citizen preferences
and least amenable to dominance by business when firms share agreement
on their preferred policies. The reasons the unified business position
either wins or loses result not from any kind of leverage that business
exerts, but rather can be traced to public opinion and election outcomes.
Policies match the desires of business only when citizens, through their
policy preferences and voting choices, embrace ideas and candidates supportive
of what business wants.
The results of the research appear in an article in American Journal
of Political Science and in a book, American
Business and Political Power: Public Opinion, Elections, and Democracy,
published by the University of Chicago Press.
|
