[url=http://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained]Who really matters in our democracy — the general public, or wealthy elites? That's the topic of a new study by political scientists Martin Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin Page of Northwestern. The study's been getting lots of attention, because the authors conclude, basically, that the US is a corrupt oligarchy where ordinary voters barely matter. Or as they put it, [b]"economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence."[/b][/url] Political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page compiled almost 2000 polls/surveys from the past 20 years that asked for opinions on policy changes, and then separated the respondents by income. They also looked at where 29 major lobbying groups stood on those issues. Finally, the team looked at which of the policy changes actually ended up going through. There are two major findings with regards to the influence average citizens have. One is that this influence is made almost negligible by economic elites and special interest groups: "average citizens only get what they want if economic elites or interest groups also want it". The other is that there's no actual correlation between how [i]many[/i] average people support a policy change and how likely it is to get passed; on the other hand, the amount of elite and interest group alignment had a huge impact on the adoption of policies. The main criticisms about the study have centered around its reliance on surveys, as well as how much we should really want the average American to have a say in public policy. For example, people would love to cut the deficit but there aren't many actual programs we're willing to cut. [url=http://www.princeton.edu/~mgilens/Gilens%20homepage%20materials/Gilens%20and%20Page/Gilens%20and%20Page%202014-Testing%20Theories%203-7-14.pdf]Link to the study.[/url]