Exhibit 702 ยท Peer-reviewed article
The Political Representation of Economic Interests: Subversion of Democracy or Middle-Class Supremacy?
middle-class power has remained remarkably strong over time, even as inequality has risen.
Argues that models regressing policy change on preferences for change (the Gilens and Bartels set-up) can credit the rich with influence when they are only better informed about short-run fiscal policy, and shows this on simulated data. Re-tests with preferred levels of spending, using International Social Survey Programme surveys across advanced democracies including the United States and a new dataset on who gains from fiscal policy. Finds policy aligns with middle-class interests. The scope is fiscal and redistributive policy, not Gilens's full range of 1,779 issues. The authors state that the middle-class result does not mean inequality is adequately addressed, and that the poor and lower middle class depend on coalitions and the generosity of higher classes. They also write that critics elevating the middle class to a sometimes coequal with the upper class do not explain why the rich so often get their way (p. 257).
- Source
- Mads Andreas Elkjaer and Torben Iversen, World Politics 72(2), pp. 254-290
- Date
- April 2020
- Quoted from
- Abstract, p. 254
- Grade
- Peer-reviewed
- Document
- https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887119000224
- Accessed
- 2026-11-09
- Cited by
- Findings citing this exhibit