The US is not a democracy but an oligarchy, study concludes (2014)

The American Flag seen down a motion for Wall Street adjacent the New York Stock Exchange. UPI/John Angelillo | License Photo

WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- Oligarchy is simply a shape of authorities successful which powerfulness is vested successful a ascendant people and a mini group exercises power complete the wide population.

A new study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities concluded that the U.S. authorities represents not the interests of the mostly of citizens but those of the rich | and powerful.

"Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens" analyzed extended data, comparing astir 1,800 U.S. policies enacted betwixt 1981 and 2002 pinch the expressed preferences of mean and able Americans arsenic good arsenic typical liking groups.

The resulting information empirically verifies that U.S. policies are wished by the economical elite.

"The cardinal constituent that emerges from our investigation is that economical elites and organized groups representing business interests person important independent impacts connected US authorities policy, while mass-based liking groups and mean citizens person small aliases nary independent influence,” says the peer-reviewed study.

The 42-page study analyzes U.S. authorities done the model of 4 awesome theoretical traditions -- Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism -- concluding that U.S. governmental policies seldom align pinch the mostly of citizens.

What do our findings opportunity astir populist successful America? They surely represent troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily aliases exclusively to the argumentation preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the mostly does not norm -- astatine slightest not successful the causal consciousness of really determining argumentation outcomes. When a mostly of citizens disagrees pinch economical elites and/or with organized interests, they mostly lose. Moreover, because of the beardown position quo bias built into the U.S. governmental system, moreover erstwhile reasonably ample majorities of Americans favour argumentation change, they mostly do not get it.

The study consoles that “Americans do bask galore features central to antiauthoritarian governance, specified arsenic regular elections, state of reside and association” but goes connected to pass that “we judge that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a mini number of able Americans, past America’s claims to being a antiauthoritarian nine are earnestly threatened.”

[H/t Telegraph] [Study]