What type of political system is the US? Forthcoming in the Journal of Political Power

Abstract

The conventional understanding of the contemporary US as a polyarchy, considered as rule by multiple minorities, is not now supportable. It relies upon the salience of pluralism over political inequality, but these conditions are now inverted. The current salience of political inequality is the chief characteristic of unequalocracy, a political system type intermediate between polyarchy and plutocracy. Contrary to Gilens and Bartels, the US has not been demonstrated to have enough representational inequality to be a plutocracy. Using an alternative conception of what constitutes preference differences between high- and low-income groups, and applying it to Gilens’ own data, I find too few preference differences to show plutocracy exits in the US.

Keywords:

• unequalocracy
• polyarchy
• plutocracy
• representational inequality
• political inequality

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Elizabeth A. Wagner and Gabriel Aaronson for their research assistance: to David Mayhew, Charles E. Lindblom, Mark Haugaard and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on the manuscript; and to Katsuhito Iwai for moral support. The ideas presented here benefited from discussions with members of the Columbia University Seminar on Political Economy and Contemporary Social Issues.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Similarly, a system of rival sovereignties was synonymous with pluralist democracy in Dahl (1961, pp. 215–218). Highlighting the salience which he attached to pluralism, Dahl (1967) entitled one of his books Pluralist Democracy in the United States in the book's first edition, only to remove the qualifier in a subsequent edition.

2. On Dahl’s theory of pluralist democracy, see the special issue of this journal devoted to his thought, ‘Robert A. Dahl: An Unended Quest’, Journal of Political Power, Vol. 8, Issue 2, 2015.

3. This is Dahl’s (1957) classic concept of power, subsequently labeled first dimensional power by Lukes (2005, p. 16 [1974]).

4. In the issue of Journal of Political Power on Dahl, Baldwin (2015, p. 222) interestingly observes that, because the precise wording of Dahl’s concept of power does not mention B’s preferences, but only her or his behavior, it is a definition of power in general, including all three dimensions of power, rather than a definition of first dimensional power in specific. When trying to determine whether Dahl’s concept of power boils down to the first dimension of power or subsumes all three dimensions, it is important to consider the basic causal relationship between the individual, groups, and the system of political actors in his political thinking. Is the individual (or individual group) causally and logically prior to other individuals (individual groups) and the political system? Or is the individual (group) socially self-determined and -formed by and within relations between a system of political actors. Dahl was not a doctrinaire individualist or social theorist. He could, however, be very atomistic in treating individuals (individual groups) as ultimate determinants, particularly before the critique of his work by third dimensional power theorists. This may seem surprising in view of his acceptance of some of the postwar socialization literature and his (1956, pp. 74–78) own contribution to it on the social formation of the norms of polyarchy. But the fact that Lindblom (1977) found it necessary to introduce the idea of ‘circularity in polyarchy’ is testimony to the atomism and individualism that characterize Dahl’s formulation of polyarchy. Dahl’s concept of power is best understood as an integral part of a political philosophy that subordinates third dimensional power to first dimensional power. Polyarchy sans circularity is a political context where individual A’s use of power to shape individual B’s policy preferences is largely unrecognized and underappreciated when the distribution of power is assessed. Considered as a component of Dahl’s overarching theory of polyarchy, the classic concept of power only partially subsumes the third dimension of power, which remains importantly distinct and different from third dimensional power.

5. On dichotomous, gradient and stratified power schemes, see Ossowski (1963, pp. 13, 20–37, 61, 65, 77, 149–150, 179, 38–57, 102–104).

6. On specific policy preferences of the income groups, see Gilens (2012, pp. 106, 110, 114, 118).

7. Unequalocracy is preferable, as a term, to ‘unequal democracy’ (Bartels 2008) because the latter is a contradiction in terms. Political equality is essential to the notion of democracy, so unequal democracy equates democracy with its antithesis, therefore devolving into nonsense.

8. See Dahl (1967, 1976, pp. 347–374, 450).

9. Zucker (2015a). See also Piketty and Saez (2004, p. 9) and Saez and Zucman (2014).

10. See Dahl (1961), pp. 83, 243.

11. Lowi et al. (2014, p. 233) italics added.

12. ‘Sheldon Silver’s Albany, Guilty on All Counts’, The New York Times, December 1, 2015.

13. On ‘dollarocracy’, see Nichols and McChesney (2013).

14. Janet Hook and Heather Haddon, ‘Billionaires Put Their Stamp on Campaigns’, The Wall Street Journal, August 1–2, 2015, Section A, p. 4.

15. Dahl 1982, p. 171. Nicholas Confessore, ‘GOP Donors Seek to Anoint a 2016 Nominee Early’, The New York Times, December 8, 2014.

16. Jonathan Weisman, ‘G.O.P. Error Reveals Donors and the Price of Access’. The New York Times, September 24, 2014.

17. Dahl (1971, p. 107; 1976 [1967], p. 389, see also p. 309, and chapter 28) and Rae and Taylor (1970, pp. 23–24, 86–87).

18. For a fuller discussion, see Zucker (2015b).

19. In this belief, they have sometimes been correct, sometimes not. President George W. Bush sought to exploit a religious crosscut in the 2004 election, though this may actually have hurt him somewhat. He also sought to generate a national defense cross cut, on the issue of terrorism, and in that effort he may have been more successful. A post-election poll shows broad concern about terrorism and those who were concerned about it preferred Bush. See Ansolabehere and Stewart (2005) and Jackson (2005).

20. The source of the data from which these election figures are drawn is Teixeira and Abramowitz (2008, pp. 9, 10).

21. All or at least most types of regimes possess some democracy or freedom, so it may not be particularly meaningful to say that unequalocracy possesses a modicum of democracy and just leave it at that. The Iranian theocracy has an element of democracy in that there is some consultative relationship between the Supreme leader and the Umma. Soviet totalitarianism was discerned to have some inner party pluralism within the allegedly ‘monolithic’ ruling group. And, for a portion of the post-Soviet period in Russia, there was some significant democracy in that there was a 20% chance that the challenger would beat the regime incumbent in national elections for chief executive. The difficulty of distinguishing different democratic residuals in various regimes is said to be the logical consequence of the fact that democracy is a scalar concept rather than a sortal concept. On that view, there are differences in degree of democracy, but there are not categorically different types of regimes judged upon the basis of the form or nature of the democracy found in them. Therefore if one is to ascribe a modicum of democracy to unequalocracy in a non-trivial way, one has to do more than merely state that unequalocracy contains a modicum of democracy; one needs to see if regimes types can be sorted by their kind of democracy. While unequalocracy and corporatist authoritarian regimes both have limited pluralism, the residual element of democracy in the former differs in kind and degree from that in the latter. When state corporatism brings the labor movement under the state apparatus through authoritarian suppression of independent labor organization, it undermines the organization and autonomy of labor to a greater extent and in a different way than an unequlocracy does through its so-called ‘right to work laws’. While unequalocracy and totalitarianism both display concentrated power, the residual element of democracy differs in kind and degree in these regimes because the concentration of power in a totalitarian regime’s far smaller ruling group is far greater and much different in kind than the concentration of power in a relatively pluralistic unequalocracy with its stratified electoral system for selecting top authority, which does not engage in authoritarian suppression of the political rights of prospective candidates. While unequalocracy and competitive authoritarianism both display unequal playing fields, the non-authoritarian tilting of the playing field in an unequalocracy by extremely unequal conditions of political participation, influence, organization, campaign finance and political advertising leaves a higher than 20% chance that the challenger to the politicians standing for the interests of the high-income/wealth group will be defeated. The modicum of democracy in unequalocracy is considerably larger and more genuine than that in competitive authoritarianism, theocracy, corporatist authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Does unequalocracy then devolve into the level of democracy found in polyarchy? No. Unequalocracy has more extreme political inequality than a polyarchy does, so it could not be as democratic as a polyarchy since democracy is defined by political equality.

22. I argue for this viewpoint in Zucker (2015b).

23. See Dahl (1976, pp. 49–50).

24. In has last published book Dahl (2006, p. 94) seemed to realize this.

25. For a fuller discussion of Dahl’s identification of democracy with political equality, see Zucker (2001, pp. 294–269).

26. Nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen, and Karen Yourish, ‘The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election’, The New York Times, October 10, 2015.

27. Nickk, ‘Causes and Effects of the Political Inequality in America’, Daily Kos, October 22, 2013.

28. Nicholas Confessore, ‘Koch Brothers’ Budget of $889 Million for 2016 Is on Par With Both Parties’ Spending’, The New York Times, January 23, 2016, p. A1.

29. One of the rules of American presidential elections nowadays is that every candidate must have her or his sugar daddy, a billionaire backer.

30. Patrick Healy and Jonathan Martin, ‘For Republicans, Mounting Fears of Lasting Split’, The New York Times, January 16, 2016.

31. Indeed, in quantitative analysis of plutocracy it would be preferable to use data on the policy preferences of the 99th income percentile or the 99.9th income fractal, but such data is not yet available, though Page et al. (2013) have published a pilot study dealing with them in one city. Unless and until Page et al. extend their analysis, obtaining more general results, Gilens’ (2012) study stands as the quantitative analysis of record on plutocracy.

32. On dichotomous, gradient and stratified power schemes, see Ossowski (1963, pp. 13, 20–37, 61, 65, 77, 149–150, 179, 38–57, 102–104).

33. Erikson and Bhatti (2011, p. 241) show that Bartels (2008) analysis does not provide ‘conclusive statistical evidence in favor of the differential representation hypothesis’, which leaves a need to determine the validity of Gilens’(2012) argument.

34. Quantitative analysis of governmental responsiveness to the mass public, which made a particularly important contribution 14 years ago, goes back at least as far as the 1980s and 1990s (see Page and Shapiro 1983, Wlezien 1996, Erikson et al. 2002, Ansolabehere et al. 2001), but it was not combined with the study of unequal government responsiveness to economic subgroups until much more recently.

35. Gilens (2012, pp. 99–100) states that preferences of the high- and low-income groups diverge by more than 10% points in 40% of the proposed changes in foreign policy, 44% of the proposed changes in social welfare policies, 45% of the proposed changes in economic policies and 44% of the proposed changes in religious policies. On this basis one can say that Gilens holds that there are greater than 10 pt. preferences gaps between high- and low-income groups in approximately 44% of the cases in these four policy domains. The cases in these domains comprise 75% of the full set of 1779, which is 1334 cases. As the reader does not have the percentage of the 1779 cases that have greater than 10 pt. spreads between preferences, I will use 44% as an estimate of the percentage of cases in the 1779 case set that have greater than 10 pt. spreads or what Gilens calls ‘large preference gaps’.

36. For the 44% figure see note 35.

37. The 67% figure that I am using in this section is based on the fact that 67% of the 36 case set of known agreements and agreements with greater than 10 pt. spreads are overlapping majorities or overlapping minorities and that 67% of the remaining 8 cases in the 44 case set of greater than 10 pt spreads are estimated to be overlapping majorities or overlapping minorities.

38. Editorial Board, ‘Review and Outlook: Scientific Fraud and Politics’, The Wall Street Journal, June 6–7, 2015, p. A10.

39. The reader may be wondering why I have not mentioned whether Gilens’ income data are for individuals or households. When categorizing individuals by class, it is of course important to know whether the researcher is using household incomes or individual incomes, as this can affect income category assignment. Gilens (2005, p. 783, 2012, p. 61) assigns ‘an income score’ to each respondent. Sounds like he is using individual incomes? These scores are derived from income categories in opinion research surveys, but we are not informed whether those surveys used household income data or individual income data. Gilens tells me in an email that it is household data.

40. ‘After rescoring income for each survey, I estimated predicted preferences for specific income percentiles using a quadratic function . . . [B]y converting income categories into percentiles for each survey, this approach generates policy preferences based on relative rather than absolute measures of income levels’, Gilens (2012, p. 62) writes.

41. ‘Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–2002’, November 2004, extended version of Piketty and Saez 2003. Tables and Figures updated in 2013 in Excel format, January 2014 http://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/.

42. Nicholas Confessore, Sarah Cohen, and Yaren Yourish ‘The Families Funding the 2016 Presidential Election’, The New York Times, October 10, 2015.