Who Gets a Voice? Exploring the Imbalances in Washington's Organised Interest System
Schlozman's evocative metaphor of 'the voices in the heavenly chorus continue to sing with an upper-class accent' encapsulates a fundamental and persistent imbalance in the landscape of Washington lobbying and interest group politics. This imagery powerfully conveys the idea that the organised interest system in the nation's capital overwhelmingly amplifies the voices of business and upper-class interests, while the concerns of ordinary citizens, workers, and disadvantaged groups are comparatively muted or even silent. The author presents a comprehensive and data-driven analysis to support this claim, revealing a stark disparity in representation across various sectors of society. The numerical dominance of economic interests is particularly striking. Schlozman writes that "Of all the organizations active in Washington, 51 percent represent business in one way or another" (2018, p. 157) with corporations alone accounting for more than a third of all organisati...