The majority of the men and women in Congress also engaged in either state or local politics, were business people, or practiced law before being elected to Congress. Approximately 80 percent of both the Senate and the House of Representatives are male, and fewer than 20 percent of members of Congress are people of color. This picture depicts the fairly uniform nature of Congress.
Most are men, and nearly all are white. Members of Congress also tend to resemble one another in terms of income and level of education. For example, changes in the way taxes are levied and spent do not affect all citizens equally.
A flat tax, which generally requires that everyone pay the same percentage rate, hurts the poor more than it does the rich. If the income tax rate was flat at 10 percent, all Americans would have to pay 10 percent of their income to the federal government.
People who were not wealthy would probably pay more than they could comfortably afford, while the wealthy, who could afford to pay more and still live well, would not see a real impact on their daily lives.
Similarly, the allocation of revenue affects the rich and the poor differently. Giving more money to public education does not benefit the wealthy as much as it does the poor, because the wealthy are more likely than the poor to send their children to private schools or to at least have the option of doing so. However, better funded public schools have the potential to greatly improve the upward mobility of members of other socioeconomic classes who have no other option than to send their children to public schools.
As of , more than 40 percent of Congress sent their children to private schools. Overall, only10 percent of the American population does so. Therefore, a Congress dominated by millionaires who send their children to private schools is more likely to believe that flat taxes are fair and that increased funding for public education is not a necessity.
Their experience, however, does not reflect the experience of average Americans. Pluralist theory rejects this approach, arguing that although there are elite members of society they do not control government. Instead, pluralists argue, political power is distributed throughout society. Rather than resting in the hands of individuals, a variety of organized groups hold power, with some groups having more influence on certain issues than others. Thousands of interest group s exist in the United States.
Approximately 70—90 percent of Americans report belonging to at least one group. According to pluralist theory , people with shared interests will form groups in order to make their desires known to politicians. These groups include such entities as environmental advocates, unions, and organizations that represent the interests of various businesses.
Because most people lack the inclination, time, or expertise necessary to decide political issues, these groups will speak for them. As groups compete with one another and find themselves in conflict regarding important issues, government policy begins to take shape. In this way, government policy is shaped from the bottom up and not from the top down, as we see in elitist theory.
Robert Dahl , author of Who Governs? They will attempt to give people what they want in exchange for their votes. The Center for Responsive Politics is a non-partisan research group that provides data on who gives to whom in elections. Visit OpenSecrets. Although elitists and pluralists present political influence as a tug-of-war with people at opposite ends of a rope trying to gain control of government, in reality government action and public policy are influenced by an ongoing series of tradeoffs or compromises.
For instance, an action that will meet the needs of large numbers of people may not be favored by the elite members of society. Giving the elite what they want may interfere with plans to help the poor. As pluralists argue, public policy is created as a result of competition among groups. In the end, the interests of both the elite and the people likely influence government action, and compromises will often attempt to please them both.
Since the framing of the U. Constitution, tradeoffs have been made between those who favor the supremacy of the central government and those who believe that state governments should be more powerful. Should state governments be able to respond to the desires of citizen groups by legalizing the use of marijuana? Should the national government be able to close businesses that sell marijuana even in states where it is legal? It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values.
Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Use this tool to compare the groups on some key topics and their demographics. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work. President Michael Dimock explains why. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.
It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. Research Topics.
Yes, we get to vote for members of parliament and we thus get a say in who governs us. But individual politicians are largely under the control of political parties, and political parties have their own agendas which are, in turn, under the influence of other players, particularly the rich and powerful. Once elected, politicians pay lip service to reflecting the will of the people, but we-the-people rarely feel that they are really doing this.
Party politicians do not listen, do not reflect and do not change their minds. True deliberation arises only when people come together as equals and deal openly with all the factual and emotional elements that go into making hard decisions.
Party politics increasingly crowds out the ability of politicians to do this. What makes it different it from other houses of parliament is that its members will be chosen by lottery, or sortition. They show very clearly that a house of parliament populated by ordinary citizens chosen by sortition could work, and work well. A deliberative poll, for example, attempts to inform opinion by providing the opportunity for wide public discussion among those polled.
This is done by bringing together a representative sample of the population — selected by a polling company — for two days at a central venue where they can discuss the issues with each other in small groups, as well as put questions to a panel of experts who represent a range of opinions on the topic at hand. A deliberative poll was held in on the topic of whether Australia should become a republic. This high turnout attests to the fact that participants perceived the issue to be important and the forum to be credible.
Ordinary citizens revelled in the chance to question the various experts gathered for their benefit, and as their confidence grew, they were quite willing to challenge the information they were being given. It tends to break down, from both sides, the tendency for experts and non-experts to view each other as adversaries — where the experts view the citizens as merely ignorant and a slate to be written upon, and where the citizens view the experts as an elite merely asserting the power that arises from superior knowledge.
Those operating as experts in this environment are not simply articulating their own views in a way that a lay audience can easily understand.
They are making available their knowledge for a lay audience to reach their own conclusions about the issue. The lessons we learn from these experiences with deliberative democracy is that extending them into a more formal and permanent part of our governing process is worth thinking about seriously, and any claims that such a concept could never work because ordinary people are disengaged or apathetic should be treated with the contempt that these examples suggest they deserve.
If we are really serious about bottom-up reform of our democratic institutions, then reforming the seat of government itself in this way, a way that installs ordinary people at the heart of power, is essential.
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