| This dissertation offers the first systematic empirical test of an argument commonly advanced by critics of the federal election campaign finance system---that perceptions of large campaign contributor dominance has encouraged Americans to believe that the government is less responsive to average citizens. The dissertation begins introducing a more detailed, rigorous conception of political empowerment beliefs and the processes by which people form them. I then use the framework to establish criteria for kinds of news media messages about campaign finance that would encourage Americans to attribute legislators' actions to campaign contributors' influence. Next, I show that the volume of such information flows increased after the Watergate scandal and the advent of the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act. Finally, an ordinal probit analysis of national survey data demonstrates that (1) Americans believe that large donors influence legislators' actions, and (2) that such attribution beliefs reduce perceptions of ordinary citizens' influence over the national government. |
