American Public Opinion, Advocacy, and Policy in Congress: What the Public Wants and What It Gets [Paperback]

This book is the first to examine what influences Congress across the hundreds of issues it deals with, and produces some surprising conclusions.What most strongly influences Congress? Is it the public, or those with the resources to pressure government? This book is the first to examine what influences Congress across the hundreds of issues it deals with, and produces some surprising conclusions. The public can get what it wants on issues it cares about, but it doesn't care about many. And on most issues there is too little pressure on government to matter. Politics may be less of a battle between the public and organized interests than most people think  and what it means to be a democracy under such circumstances is very much an open question.What most strongly influences Congress? Is it the public, or those with the resources to pressure government? This book is the first to examine what influences Congress across the hundreds of issues it deals with, and produces some surprising conclusions. The public can get what it wants on issues it cares about, but it doesn't care about many. And on most issues there is too little pressure on government to matter. Politics may be less of a battle between the public and organized interests than most people think  and what it means to be a democracy under such circumstances is very much an open question.Between one election and the next, members of Congress introduce thousands of bills. What determines which become law? Is it the public? Do we have government of the people, by the people, for the people? Or is it those who have the resources to organize and pressure government who get what they want? In the first study ever of a random sample of policy proposals, Paul Burstein finds that the public can get what it wants  but mainly on the few issues that attract its attention. Does this mean organized interests get what they want? Not necessarily  on most issues there is so little political activity that it hardly mattl)