Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of American politics—which can be characterized as theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic-Elite Domination, and two types of interest-group pluralism, Majoritarian Pluralism and Biased Pluralism—offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented.

A great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. We report on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.

Which policymakers are most likely to enact legislation drafted by organized business interests? Departing from the business power scholarship that emphasizes structural, electoral, or financial mechanisms for corporate influence, I argue that lawmakers are likely to rely on businesses' proposals when they lack the time and resources to develop legislation on their own, especially when they also hold an ideological affinity for business. Using two new datasets of “model bills” developed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a policy group that promotes pro-business legislation across the states, I find strong support for this theory. These results indicate that ALEC provides private policy capacity to state legislators who would otherwise lack such support, and relatedly, that low state policy capacity may favor certain organized interests over others—namely the business interests affiliated with ALEC. My findings have implications for the study of business influence in policymaking, as well as for state politics.

In recent years, the American political parties have shifted their positions on elementary and secondary education policy, both relative to each other and to their own past positions. Established explanations for party issue position-taking privilege the influence of groups in the parties' coalitions; yet in this case, both parties have taken positions opposed by important components of their bases. We develop a general framework for understanding party issue position adoption and change that highlights the role of issue definition—the considerations, values, and goals associated with a policy debate at any one time. This framework helps us to explain the participation and preferences of groups regarding an issue; the perceived ideological fit and strategic benefits of issue positions for parties; and how parties negotiate and manage issue conflict within their coalition. We apply that framework to the case of education policy, showing how education issue definition has changed over time—from a focus on resources and equality to an emphasis on values and excellence—and how those changes have been consequential for each party's changing, and converging, positions on education policy. We conclude by discussing the potential application of our model of party issue positioning to other issues in American politics.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) is a landmark in American social policy that is disrupting America’s “liberal tradition.” It is successfully expanding access and compelling insurers to change their business models to serve more socially-useful purposes; cost control enjoyed initial success but confronts barriers rooted in America’s resilient political economy. The ACA is disrupting long-standing patterns of American politics, introducing new developmental paths that unsettle or, in certain respects, offset the familiar patterns of selectivity, deference to private markets, and “drift” that tend to produce government inaction as economic insecurity increases. New policy arrangements for financing and delivering medical care is ushering in a new politics of US health care that are resetting the terms of future debate; the ACA is also challenging familiar approaches to studying politics including analyses of framing, policy effects and political development, and American political thought.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Anthony Downs, political scientists have tended to characterize American politics as a game among undifferentiated competitors, played out largely through elections, with outcomes reflecting how formal rules translate election results into legislative votes. In this perspective, voters, campaigns, elections, and the ideological distribution of legislators merit extensive scrutiny. Other features of the political environment—most notably, the policies these legislators help create and the interest groups that struggle over these policies—are deemed largely peripheral. However, contemporary politics often looks very different than the world described by Downs. Instead, it more closely resembles the world depicted by E. E. Schattschneider—a world in which policy and groups loom large, the influence of voters is highly conditional, and the key struggle is not over gaining office but over reshaping governance. Over the last twenty years, a growing body of scholarship has emerged that advances this corrective vision—an approach we call “policy-focused political science.” In this framework, politics is centrally about the exercise of government authority for particular substantive purposes. Such exercises of authority create the “terrain” for political struggle, profoundly shaping both individual and group political behavior. More important, because policies can be so consequential, they also serve as the “prize” for many of the most enduring political players, especially organized interest groups. The payoffs of a policy-focused perspective include a more accurate portrayal of the institutional environment of modern politics, an appreciation for the fundamental importance of organized groups, a better understanding of the dynamics of policy change, and a more accurate mapping of interests, strategies, and influence. These benefits are illustrated through brief examinations of two of the biggest changes in American politics over the last generation: asymmetric partisan polarization and the growing concentration of income at the top.

New digital video technologies are transforming how people everywhere document, publish, and consume information. As knowledge production becomes increasingly oriented towards digital/visual modes of expression, scholars will need new approaches for conducting and publishing research. The purpose of this article is to advance a systematic approach to scholarship called analytic filmmaking. I argue that when filming and editing are guided by rigorous social scientific standards, digital video can be a compelling medium for illustrating causal processes, communicating theory-driven explanations, and presenting new empirical findings. I furthermore argue that analytic films offer policymakers and the public an effective way to glean insights from and engage with scholarly research. Throughout the article I draw on examples from my work to demonstrate the principles of analytic filmmaking in practice and to point out how analytic films complement written scholarship.

While there is much to appreciate in Roy Germano's essay, I argue that the analytic filmmaking project as currently presented has flaws that need to be addressed before we can proceed with this approach. First, Germano underemphasizes many of the similarities among visual, audio, and textual data collection and analysis while at the same time failing to note important ways in which the two differ. Second, the discussion of documentary filmmaking focuses on a particular style of documentary and neglects to consider documentaries that are similar in their construction to the type of analytic filmmaking he argues for in the article. This emphasis on the differences creates needless and potentially problematic schisms between two groups of empirical researchers who have a great deal in common, in terms of interests and methods. Finally, the theoretical framework and the connection between theory and data need to be presented much more explicitly so that the viewer can follow the argument of the film.

No observational method is “point and shoot.” Even bracketing interpretive methodologies and their attendant philosophies, a researcher—including an experimentalist—always frames observation in terms of the topic of interest. I cannot ever be “just a camera lens,” not as researcher and not as photographer. Framing research “shots,” an observer always includes some features of the research question terrain while excluding others—of necessity, given human limitations and the partiality, always, of what we can know and the knowledge we can claim. With “shutters” open, we are never passive, always thinking, always world-making. While attention to videography and other visual research methods is welcome, researchers doing “visual politics” need to ask “political” questions: who has created the image being analyzed, for what purpose(s), what imagined viewer(s), and what unintended viewer(s), as well as consider the ethical issues that these methods entail.

This article engages Germano’s film and essay. The author lauds the fundamental thrust of the essay towards achieving scholarly recognition for film projects based on scholarly research. At the same time, the author questions Germano’s sharp opposition between analytic and documentary films. He appraises The Other Side of Immigration very favorably, while pointing out that the aesthetic choices and the power of the testimonies do not fall neatly within the categories established by Germano. The author then discusses his own experiences in conjoining historical research and documentary filmmaking.

Roy Germano argues for an “analytic filmmaking,” which would use film as a means to elucidate social scientific laws and generalizations. Yet film, even when it seeks simply to document the truth, is a form of narrative. To strip these ambiguities away in the name of a crude empiricism would rob these narratives of just that kind of information that makes them most valuable—the subtleties and nuances that they can capture and that simple transcripts cannot. Better models for understanding film can be found either in the direct acknowledgment and exploration of these ambiguities, or, alternatively, in the “analytic narratives” approach. Unlike Germano’s analytic film making, which prizes the abstract over the particular, analytic narratives gather their energy from the continuing tension between the particular and the abstraction.

In this response I discuss the cinema ontology of Roy Germano’s project of analytic filmmaking. I argue that though the project is at once compelling and ambitious, there are challenges posed by the medium of cinema itself that ultimately undermine Germano’s commitments to indexicality, referentiality, and continuity in political science research.

I would like to begin by thanking Jeff Isaac for organizing this symposium. I am also grateful to the five commentators—Henry Farrell, Jeffrey Gould, Davide Panagia, Sunita Parikh, and Dvora Yanow—for taking the time to think about my target essay and to offer such thought provoking comments and critiques. Even if the commentators have reservations about the analytic filmmaking approach, I am encouraged by their enthusiasm for the fundamental idea contained in my target essay: Audiovisual media can and should be used to publish social science research. This rejoinder aims to briefly clarify my positions on some of the major issues raised by the commentators. The first part addresses questions about how we should structure audiovisual publications, while the second part examines the nexus between analytic filmmaking and scientific inquiry.

Many American professors are looking for innovative ways to engage policymakers and fellow citizens—and the boldest new endeavor is the fast-growing Scholars Strategy Network. Since 2011, “SSN” (as it is called) has enrolled more than 470 scholars from many disciplines working at over 140 colleges and universities. Many members participate in issue-oriented groups to address major national challenges—ranging from voting rights and the effects of mass incarceration, to health reform implementation, and to women’s roles in politics and government. SSN also supports nineteen regional chapters operating autonomously in states and metropolitan areas from Maine to Hawaii and Minnesota to Texas. Each member presents research findings in vividly written two-page briefs. In turn, SSN staffers and volunteer leaders link members and their research to journalists and bloggers, to policymakers and their staffs, and to citizens associations and advocacy groups concerned with public issues. The Network as a whole is not aligned with any ideology, political party, or candidate. Members espouse varied views and make individual choices about civic engagement, yet they share a belief that scholars should reach beyond the ivory tower and draw from academic research to improve public policy and enhance democracy.

Ira Katznelson’s Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time is a big book, and it addresses a big theme: the historical significance of the New Deal, as a watershed moment in U.S. political history, as a form of “social democracy, American style” that allowed liberal democracy to prevail in competition with Soviet communism and fascism, and as the “origin” of key features of contemporary politics in the United States. The book is a contribution to the study of U.S. politics, but also to the study of comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and comparative history. We have thus invited a range of political science scholars to comment on the book as a work of general political science; as an account of the New Deal and its political legacies in the United States; as a contribution to the comparative analysis of social democracy and the welfare state; and as a way of integrating the study of domestic and foreign policy, and in particular the study of U.S. politics and international relations.