Agendas and Interest Groups

利益集团对政治的影响对民主构成潜在威胁。集体行动的挑战预示着最有可能被代表的群体将拥有集中的经济利益或强烈的信仰，从而导致政策与公众舆论不一致。虽然这种代表偏见在理论上是明确的，但很少有系统的证据表明，一小部分利益集团对政府产生了不成比例的影响。此外，社会科学家对利益集团的政治偏好与公众的政治偏好之间的对应程度知之甚少。《议程与利益集团》是一个比较项目，它将首次通过关注政策议程和分析特定类型的群体和公民在何种情况下发现他们的问题在政府面前得到代表，来解决对利益集团影响作用的关切。为了估计公民关注的问题与利益集团和政府的政策议程之间的一致性程度，我们将从四个国家的100个利益集团中随机抽样采访代表，调查每个国家的普通公众的政策愿望，并跟踪每个国家三个政策领域中每个领域的三个具体问题。在绘制每个国家的公众、团体和政府议程时，我们的目标是解决关于代表性不平等的程度和原因的规范性重要问题。

The influence of interest groups in politics poses potential threats to democracy. The challenges of collective action predict that the groups most likely to be represented will have concentrated economic interests or intensely held beliefs, resulting in policies at odds with general public opinion. While such biases in representation are clear in theory, there is scant systematic evidence of disproportionate influence over government by a subset of interest groups. Further, social scientists know little about the degree of correspondence between the political preferences of interest groups and those of the public. Agendas and Interest Groups is a comparative project that for the first time will address concerns about the role of interest group influence by focusing attention on policy agendas and analyzing the circumstances under which specific types of groups and citizens find their issues represented before government. To estimate the degree of congruence between the concerns of citizens and the policy agendas of interest groups and government, we will interview representatives from a random sample of 100 interest groups in each of our four countries, survey the general public in each country about their policy wishes, and track three specific issues in each of three policy areas in each country. In mapping each country's public, group, and government agendas, we aim to address normatively important questions about the extent and causes of inequalities in representation.