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Although Americans of Middle Eastern origin—be they of Arab, Turkish, Armenian, Sephardic Jewish, Assyrian, Greek, or Central Asian heritage—comprise one of the fastest growing groups in the United States, their music may seem invisible to the American musical connoisseur. Many of the recordings of Middle Eastern American musicians are produced and distributed within community networks. Walk into an Armenian grocer in Watertown, Massachusetts or into a Lebanese audio-video store in Dearborn, Michigan, and you will find hundreds of hours of music by Middle Eastern Americans for your listening pleasure. Walk into your public library and you may not find a thing. Middle Eastern music made in America is simply not widely available on the major or alternative recording labels to which we habitually turn for our fare of world music.

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic is viewed by many as the biggest global crisis since WWII and had profound effects on the daily lives of people and decision-making worldwide. Using the pandemic as a system-wide agenda shock, we employ a difference-in-differences design to estimate its causal effects on inequalities in political access, and social media prominence among business interests and NGOs. Our argument is twofold. First, the urgency and uncertainty of crises incentivized decision-makers to privilege providing access to business groups over securing inclusivity in the types of interests consulted. Second, NGOs compensated by increasing prominence in public communications. Our analysis of data from over 10,000 interest groups from over 100 countries registered in the European Union supports these hypotheses. Business interests successfully capitalized on the crisis in insider access, while NGOs increased prominence on social media. The results have wider implications for understanding how large-scale crises affect inequalities in representation.

AbstractWhile interest groups are consulted at different stages of policy making to provide expertise and legitimacy, their influence is often criticized as being undemocratic. Yet, we know little about how their participation in policy making affects citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of governance. Based on survey experiments conducted in the UK, the United States and Germany, our study shows that unequal participation between group types reduces the benefits of interest group consultation for citizens' perceived legitimacy of decision-making processes. Importantly, these legitimacy losses cannot be compensated for by policies that represent the opinion of the under-represented groups and are even greater when policy decisions favour the over-represented groups. Moreover, we show that citizen perceptions of how economically powerful and representative of society different types of interest groups are act as important drivers of legitimacy evaluations. Our results provide important new theoretical and empirical insights into when and why interest groups affect democratic legitimacy.

While interest groups are consulted at different stages of policy making to provide expertise and legitimacy, their influence is often criticized as being undemocratic. Yet, we know little about how their participation in policy making affects citizen perceptions of the legitimacy of governance. Based on survey experiments conducted in the UK, US, and Germany, our study shows that unequal participation between group types reduces the benefits of interest group consultation for citizens' perceived legitimacy of decision-making processes. Importantly, these legitimacy losses cannot be compensated for by policies that represent the opinion of the under-represented groups and are even greater when policy decisions favor the over-represented groups. Moreover, we show that citizen perceptions of how economically powerful and representative of society different types of interest groups are act as important drivers of legitimacy evaluations. Our results provide important new theoretical and empirical insights into when and why interest groups affect democratic legitimacy.

The aim of the paper is to examine how the population size of voluntary associations affects the process through which the public's issue priorities are translated into policy priorities. We conduct a time-series analysis of political attention in executive and legislative agendas at the US federal level in the period 1971-2001 covering all issues addressed by the US government. We show that the number of voluntary associations in a policy area has a positive conditioning effect on the link between public priorities and attention for the President's State of the Union Address. However, our results do not find a positive effect for voluntary associations at later stages of the policy cycle which experience a higher degree of institutional friction. The findings underline the importance of distinguishing between different stages of policy-making when considering the impact of voluntary associations on dynamic agenda responsiveness.

Since Tocqueville linked the quality of democracy in America to its vibrant civic culture, studies have explored the relationship between social capital and the quality of governance. Yet, few have examined the mechanisms between individual components of social capital and democracy in depth. This study focuses on the link between one component of social capital, civil society engagement, and the linkage between public opinion and policy. It argues that engagement in associations with an interest in the policy issue may stimulate correspondence between public opinion and policy through their ability to collect and disseminate information to policy makers and the public. The analysis of 20 specific policy issues from 30 European countries confirms these expectations: Issues that experience a high level of associational engagement display a stronger relationship between public opinion and policy. The findings underline the role civil society organizations can play in policy representation beyond engaging in interest advocacy.

Since Tocqueville linked the quality of democracy in America to its vibrant civic culture, studies have explored the relationship between social capital and the quality of governance. Yet, few have examined the mechanisms between individual components of social capital and democracy in depth. This study focuses on the link between one component of social capital, civil society engagement, and the linkage between public opinion and policy. It argues that engagement in associations with an interest in the policy issue may stimulate correspondence between public opinion and policy through their ability to collect and disseminate information to policy makers and the public. The analysis of 20 specific policy issues from 30 European countries confirms these expectations: Issues that experience a high level of associational engagement display a stronger relationship between public opinion and policy. The findings underline the role civil society organizations can play in policy representation beyond engaging in interest advocacy.

Since Tocqueville linked the quality of democracy in America to its vibrant civic culture, studies have explored the relationship between social capital and the quality of governance. Yet, few have examined the mechanisms between individual components of social capital and democracy in depth. This study focuses on the link between one component of social capital, civil society engagement, and the linkage between public opinion and policy. It argues that engagement in associations with an interest in the policy issue may stimulate correspondence between public opinion and policy through their ability to collect and disseminate information to policy makers and the public. The analysis of 20 specific policy issues from 30 European countries confirms these expectations: Issues that experience a high level of associational engagement display a stronger relationship between public opinion and policy. The findings underline the role civil society organizations can play in policy representation beyond engaging in interest advocacy.