Interest
groups v. Political Parties
- Interest
group: "an organized body of individuals who share
some political goals and who try to influence public
policy decisions"
- Distinguished
from a "political party":
- BREADTH
OF POLICY FOCUS: Interest groups are narrower
- Interest
groups have narrower goals, which are based on the
special interests that are common to those in the
group.
- Because
they advocate policy positions that promote their
special concerns, interest groups are said to
engage in INTEREST ARTICULATION.
- to
articulate an interest is to express it
clearly
- Parties,
on the other hand, have broader policy goals, based
on the diverse interests of the coalition of people
who support the party.
- Because
parties must somehow balance diverse, and often
conflicting, interests of people in their
coalition, they are said to be INTEREST
AGGREGATORS.
- to
aggregate interests is to collect and
balance them
- BREADTH
OF POLITICAL FOCUS: Interest groups are broader
- Interest
groups operate at all stages of the political
process -- elections, policy-making, policy
implementation.
- Parties
concentrate on the electoral process and on the
allocation of offices within government after
elections.
- In
fact, the most distinguishing characteristic of
parties is that they nominate candidates to run as
AVOWED representatives of the party.
- If
an "interest group" were to do this, it would
become a political party by definition.
- American
parties are more aggregative of interests than political
parties in other countries.
- In the
U.S. multiple, often conflicting interests are
collected and balanced off within the Democratic and
Republican parties.
- In
European governments with multiparty systems, voters
have a choice of parties that articulate interests of
specific groups of voters.
- Agrarian
parties
- Religious
parties
- Labour
- Free
enterprise
- Ethnic
parties
- The
Anglo-American democracies, which all tend to have
two-party systems: UK, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia--are also aggregative.
- In
these countries, voters tend to know in advance of
elections which interests will be represented in
government.
- In
multiparty countries, it is uncommon for a single
party to control the government after an
election.
- Consequently,
government must be formed from coalitions of
parties.
- Voters
don't know in advance which parties will join to form
a government, so voters don't know what interests will
be represented in government when they
vote.
- American
parties offer voters fewer choices, but the choices
are linked more directly to what government does after
election.
- American
parties are also less powerful than political parties in
other countries
- They
don't control nominations of their own
candidates
- They
can't even collect money to support campaigns without
cries to curtail "soft money"
- These two
characteristics of American parties--broadly aggregative
nature and lack of internal power--have consequences for
American government.
- American
parties fit the pluralist rather than the majoritarian
model of democracy.
- Parties
are only additional players on the interest group
scene.
- They
offer groups political access, but access does not
guarantee political benefits.
- Even
when in control of the legislative and executive
branches, American parties do not fit the model of
"responsible party government" and are able to
carry through legislative programs.
- Parties
are better positioned to block legislative programs
than to carry them out.
The
pervasiveness of interest groups in American
politics
- A
classification of interest groups and examples:
- business
(e.g., National Association of
Manufacturers)
- labor
(AFL-CIO)
- education
(National Education Association)
- farm
(Farm Bureau)
- environmental
(Sierra Club)
- People:
senior citizens, women, civil rights, (blacks, Jews,
Italians)
- Public
interest (Common Cause)
- Ideological
(Moral Majority, People for the American
Way)
- Single-issue
groups (Pro- and Anti-Abortion groups)
- Where do
interest groups operate in the American political
process?
- Everywhere:
- Legislative
branch--origin of term "lobby"
- executive
branch--including the bureaucracy
- judicial
branch--through arguments before the
court
- in
state politics
- in
the military
Interest
Groups in Europe
- Differences between Europe and the US:
- Membership in voluntary groups is less common
- Governmental policies are more extensive
- Many cities sponsor orchestras
- Lions Clubs don't clean up highways
- Most interest groups are organized in hierarchical
structures
- National or "peak" associations are prominent
in politics
- Many maintain links with political parties
- Interest groups work on parties, not on individual
legislators
- There are no PACs
- Interest groups don't rate legislators
- Slomp, p. 81: "In short, neither the
govenrment nor the parliament is an open market where
all kinds of pressure groups compete for
infleunce."
- Public policy reflects a business-labor-government
tripartism
- Making public policy through frequent meetings of
peak business groups, peak labor groups is called
corporatism
- The involvement of a select number of national
organizations in formulation of government
policy.
- Interest aggregation occurs at this stage in
European politics.
- Public policy in the US is made in a pluralist
free-for-all, in which political parties collide with
numerous interest groups acting in their own
interests.
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