Institutional versus Group Theories of Politics

• In Event: New Frameworks for the Study of Groups and Political Opinion

Abstract

Analysis of the political system has often focused on groups (e.g., Truman 1951); for example, the study of interest groups in Washington, DC often focuses on membership groups. The constellation of interests represented in Washington is more complicated, though: Schlozman, Verba and Brady (2012) find that only 12% of these interests represent associations of individuals with some common attribute (i.e., groups), while 82% represent things that could properly be called institutions (firms, collections of firms, governments, etc.). Institutions are often thought of as apolitical, but there is emerging evidence of partisan polarization of public sentiment toward them (Brady and Kent 2021). We propose that the study of American politics might do well to think and theorize in terms of institutions as well as groups. By definition, institutions typically have more available resources than groups; professional and highly educated groups associated with them; and more a priori clarity about their interests because they are defined by their purposes. Institutions are closer to public policy outputs and government performance, they are instantiated and created by government action, they deliver basic services (health, education, policing, consumer goods, etc.), and they are regulated and often supported or even run by government. Thus, if institutions have been overlooked by those who study American politics we may have missed a significant amount.

After reviewing literature on the evolution of groups and institutions over time, we use ANES, GSS, Harris and Gallup data, as well as our own data, to compare how opinion regarding groups and institutions has changed over time and to consider whether group-oriented questions (e.g., feeling thermometers) and institution-oriented questions (e.g., confidence questions) measure different things. We try to answer these questions: how do institutions and groups interact and overlap? Who do institutions represent? How do various political actors think about institutions and groups? How do voters and citizens think of themselves with respect to groups and institutions? How does a "politics of institutions" provide insights about American politics that go beyond those of a "politics of groups"?

Authors

• Henry E. Brady, University of California, Berkeley

• Thomas Bradley Kent, UC Berkeley