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

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 matters. Politics may be less of a battle between the public and organized interests than a struggle for attention. American society is so much more complex than it was when the Constitution was written that we may need to reconsider what it means, in fact, to be a democracy.

Author: Paul Burstein
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 01/20/2014
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.65lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9781107684256

Review Citation(s):
Choice 10/01/2014 pg. 346

About the Author
Burstein, Paul: - Paul Burstein is Professor of Sociology, Adjunct Professor of Political Science, and Samuel and Althea Stroum Chair in Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He is the author of Discrimination, Jobs, and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States Since the New Deal, and has published on topics including policy change; public opinion; social movements; interest organizations; congressional action on work, family, and gender; and the mobilization of law; with articles appearing in the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, the American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, the Sociological Forum, the Law and Society Review, and other journals. He has been elected to the Council and the Publications Committee of the American Sociological Association and to the position of Chair of the ASA's Political Sociology section. He has also served on the editorial boards of twelve journals in sociology, political science and other fields.