When Rulers Can’t Understand the Ruled - PsyPost
Johns Hopkins University political scientists wanted to know if America’s unelected officials have enough in common with the people they govern to understand them.
The answer: Not really.
Surveying 850 people who either work in government or directly with it, researchers found that the inside-the-Beltway crowd has very little in common with America at large. Washington insiders are more likely to be white. They are more educated. Their salaries are higher, they vote more and have more faith in the fairness of elections. They are probably Democrat and liberal. They more diligently follow the news. And they think the mechanizations of government couldn’t be easier to comprehend.
Jennifer Bachner and Benjamin Ginsberg asked hundreds of questions in 2013 of those who work in federal agencies, on Capitol Hill and in other Washington policy jobs. They presented some of their findings recently at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in a talk called The Civic Distance Between the Rulers and Ruled. Complete results of their research will be featured in their forthcoming book What the Government Thinks of the People.