CHAPTER 11

Group Politics
 Major linkages between government and the governed
 Children of the new age of representative govt
 Came into existence to articulate the increasingly complex divisions and cleavages of merging industrial societies
 Particular aspirations or values of the people they represented
 Association—powerful instrument of action
 A product of explosion in pressure and protest politics that has occurred since the 1960s
 Decline of political parties and a growing emphasis on organized groups and social movements as agents of mobilization
and representation

TYPES OF GROUPS
- there is a lack of agreed terminology leading to confusion
-Interest group: is an organized association that aims to influence the policies or actions of the government
1. Communal Groups—embedded in the social fabric; membership is based on birth, rather than recruitment; founded
on the basis of shared heritage and traditional bonds and loyalties; still play a major role in developing countries
2. Institutional Groups—part of the machinery of government; attempt to influence through that machinery; differ from
interest groups because the enjoy no measure of autonomy; ex. Bureaucracies and military; they serve to constrain
and dictate to politicians and elected governments; form alliances with conventional interest groups
3. Associational groups—formed by people who come together to pursue shared but limited goals; characterized by
voluntary action and existence of common interests, aspirations and attitudes; usually seen as a feature of industrial
societies; encourages the growth of self-seeking and individualized patterns of behavior; anti-contitutional and
paramilitary groups are not associational group;
a. interest groups: when their primary function is to deal with govt and other public bodies
i. May operate at a local, national or international level, or combination of these
Sectional groups—advance to protect the interest of their members; they represent a section of society (sectional);
groups engaged in production, distribution, and exchange of goods (functional groups)
Promotional groups—to advance shared values, ideals or principles; NGOs; public interest groups; aim to help groups
other than their own members
Insider groups—institutionalized access to government through routine consultation on government bodies; is not
always an advantage
Outsider groups—not consulted by govt or consulted only irregularly, and not usually in senior level; indication of
weakness because they lack formal access to government; forced to ‘go public’ in the hope of exercising indirect
influence on the policy process

Models of group politics

-role of groups reflects a particular political culture, party system, set of institutional arrangements etc
-General conclusions cannot be drawn from the nature of group politics
- understanding group politics is shaped by both the nature of the political process and the distribution of power in the society

1. Pluralist Model
 Most positive image of group politics
 capacity of groups to both defend the individual from govt and promote democratic responsiveness
 core theme: political power is fragmented and widely dispersed
 decisions are made through complex process of bargaining and interaction; views of a large number of groups
must be taken into account
  The Process of Government (Bentley): emphasis on organized groups as the fundamental building blocks of the
political process
 Strengthened by the spread of behavioralism in 1950s and 1960s
 System analysis: interest groups as ‘gatekeepers’
 Community power studies: n o single local elite dominates community decision-making
 Group politics as the very stuff of the democratic process
 Groups and organized interests had replaced political parties as the principal link between govt and governed
 Assumption is that all groups and interests have the potential to organize tand gain acess to govt, they are
internally responsive and that their political influence is in line with the intensity of their support
 ‘Group politics’: characterized by a rough balance of power
 CRITICISMS:
o Elitist: challenge empirical claims of pluralism; recognize only one ‘face’ of power: ability to influence
decision-making; there is an existence of ‘power elite’
o Marxists: existence of capitalist ’ruling’ class; unequal competition between business and labor groups
 Emergence of neopluralism
2. Corporatist Model
 Attempt to trace implications of the closer links that have developed in industrialized societies between
groups and the state
 Corporatism: social theory that emphasizes the privileged position that certain groups enjoy in relation to
government, enabling them to influence the formulation and implementation of public policy
 General phenomenon that stems from tendencies implicit in economic and social development which leads to
the belief that it is manifested in all advanced industrial states
 Reflects the symbiotic relationship between groups and govt
 PROBLEMS:
o Corporatism cut down the number and range of groups that enjoyed access to govt; privileges economic
and functional groups; may leave consumer or promotional groups in the cold
o Portrayal of interest groups as hierarchically ordered and dominated by leaders who are not directly
accountable to members
o Act as a mechanism of social control
o Poses a threat to representative democracy; decisions made outside the reach of democratic control
o Problem of govt overload- government being captured by consulted groups and be unable to resist their
demands (critique advanced by New Right)
3. New Right Model
 Antipathy towards interest groups is derived from the individualism that lies at the heart of neoliberal
economics
 Preference for a market economy driven by self-reliance and entrepreneurialism
 Concern about the alleged link between corporatism and escalating public spending, and over-govt
 Anticorporatism is influenced by public-choice theory
 Problem on public goods; unfair because some are ‘free-riders’—benefit from something they did not strive
for
 There is no guarantee that existence of a common interest will lead to the formation f an organization to
advance or defend that interest

PATTERN OF GROUP POLITICS

How important are interest groups?
o Interest activity is closely linked to economic and social development
Principal factors determining group influences are the ff:
1) Political culture
a) Determines whether interest groups are viewed as legitimate actors, whether formation is permitted or otherwise
b) Affects the willingness of people to form or join organized interests or to engage in group politics
2) Institutional structure
a) Significant in terms of interest group activity in that it establishes points of access to the policy process
b) Unitary and centralized political systems tend to narrow the scope of group politics and concentrate it around the
executive branch of government
c) US govt is fragmented and decentralized; vulnerable to group pressures
d) Relationship between political parties and interest groups is complex; they are rivals; parties: aggregate interests and
form political programmes based on ideological goals; groups: concerned with narrower and more specific range of
issues and objectives
3) Nature of party system
a) Dominant-party systems tend to narrow the focus of group politics, concerning it on the governing party
b) Multiparty systems: fertile ground for interest group activity because they broaden the scope of access
c) Legislative influence is greatest in party systems like the USA’s where political parties are weak in terms of both
organization and discipline
4) Nature and style of public policy
a) Degree to which the state intervenes in economic and social life
b) Interventionism goes hand-in-hand with corporatism

HOW DO GROUPS EXERT INFLUENCE

o Interest groups have a broad range of tactics and political strategies
o Factors that determine political strategy: issue that they’re concerned, how policy in that area, nature of the group,
resources at its dispersal
o RESOURCES:
 Public sympathy for the group and its goals
 Size of its membership or activist base
 Financial strength and organizational capabilities
 Ability to use sanction that in some way inconvenience or disrupt government
 Personal or institutional links it may have to political parties or government bodies
o The methods used by interest groups are shaped by the channel of access through which influence is exerted.
o PRINCIPAL CHANNELS OF ACCESS AVAILABLE:
 Bureaucracy
 Key institution in the process of policy formulation
 Access via this channel is largely confined to major economic and functional groups (large
corporations, trade unions, key professions etc)
 Consultative process is informal yet institutionalized—beyond the scope of public scrutiny
 Advantages that business groups enjoy in this respect include the key role they play in the economy as
producers, investors and employers etc
 This relationship is often consolidated by a ‘revolving door’ through which bureaucrats, on retirement,
move into well-paid jobs in private business
 Two factors strengthened big business’ control over ministers and bureaucrats are the greater ease
with which corporations can relocate production and investment in a global economy, and advent of
the ‘new’ public management in which governments become increasingly dependent on the private
sector for the delivery of public services
 Assembly
 ‘lobbying’
  Significance of assembly depends on: 1) role it plays in the political system and the degree to which it
can shape policy, 2) strength and discipline of the party system
 Policy networks have also developed through institutionalized contact between legislators and
‘affected’ groups and interests
 Lobbying activities focused on the assembly are less significant in states like Canada and UK where
party discipline is strong and parliaments are usually subject to executive control
 Courts
 In systems in which the courts are unable to challenge legislation and rarely check executive actions,
interest group activity focused on the judiciary is of only limited significance
 UK and New Zealand
 Political parties
 Parties and groups are closely linked by historical, ideological, and even institutional ties and are best
thought as simply two wings of the same social movement
 UK and Australian Labor parties began this way
 Relationship between parties and groups is ore pragmatic and instrumental
 Principal means through which groups influence parties is via campaign finance
 Conservative or right-wing parties and candidates are funded largely by business contributions, while
support for socialist or left-wing ones traditionally came mainly from organized labor.
 Mass Media
 Petitions, protests and demonstrations to civil disobedience and even the tactical use of violence
 Two reasons:
 Reflect the group’s outsider status and its inability to gain direct access to policy-makers
 Follow from the nature of the group’s activist base or the base character of its ideological
goals
 Trade unions: traditional practitioners of this
 New style of activist politics practices by peace campaigners, environmental lobbyist etc;
common aim is to attract media attention and stimulate public awareness and sympathy
 International organizations
 Charities and environmental campaigners that already have transnational structures and membership

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
o Interest in social movements has been revived by the emergence of so-called ‘new’ social movements since the 1960s
o Women’s movement, environmental or green movement, peace movement etc
o Social movements can be traced back to the 19th century earliest were the labor movement
o NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
 Contemporary social movements have more commonly attracted the young, the better-educated and
relatively affluent
 Have postmaterial orientation being more concerned with ‘quality of life’ issues than with social advancement
 New social movements subscribe to a common, clearly defined ideology
 Ideological stance is linked to the New Right ideas and values
 Have organizational structures that stress decentralization and participatory decision-making
 Developed new forms of political activism
 Practice ‘new politics’ turns away from established parties, interest groups, and representative processes
towards a more innovative form of protest politics
 From the mass society perspective, social movements reflect a ‘flight from freedom’
 Emergence of new social movements is widely seen as evidence of the fact that power in postindustrial
societies is increasingly dispersed and fragmented
 New movements diffuse power more effectively by resisting bureaucratization and developing more
spontaneous, affective, and decentralized forms of organization
 Impact of new social movements is more difficult to assess than interest groups or political parties
 ‘anti-party’ parties, decentralization and popular activism