YOU ARE DOWNLOADING DOCUMENT

Please tick the box to continue:

Transcript
Page 1: Topic #6 Interest Groups-“Liberty is to faction what air ...sites.uci.edu/polsci21a/files/2015/02/Interest-Groups.pdf · Interest groups tend to be narrowly focused on specific

Topic #6 Interest Groups-“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire” – James Madison, Federalist 10n America’s founding fathers designed a constitutional structure that they thought

would control the power of interest groups. Considering the current state of interest group politics, how well did they succeed? How do interest group activities impact

representation by the Congress and leadership by the president? n How Interests are Aggregated

n There are two major ways the citizenry’s interest are aggregated and represented

n Political Partiesn Purpose of nominating and electing candidates to government

officen Interest Groups

n Formed around narrower purposes, such as seeking to advance economic and social policies of benefit to their group

n Interest Group, definedn An association of persons organized together for the purpose of

attempting to influence government behaviorn What does an interest group do?

n Lobbying (direct contact with members of government in the hopes of persuading them concerning policy outcomes

n Electioneering (helping to elect or defeat specific candidates or parties)n Interest groups tend to be narrowly focused on specific policies or policy area

n Model of Parties

n n Model of Interest Groups

Page 2: Topic #6 Interest Groups-“Liberty is to faction what air ...sites.uci.edu/polsci21a/files/2015/02/Interest-Groups.pdf · Interest groups tend to be narrowly focused on specific

n

n Pluralismn Pluralism can be described as a free-for-all competition among multiple

independent groupsn Organized interest politics in the United States is highly dispersed because of

several basic features of American democracy such as the presidential system and separation of powers, and the federal division of power

n Basic premise of pluralism is that if one group gets large, another contrary group will become mobilized to compete

n Elite Theoryn The strong influence of business interests on national policy

n Large multinational corporations often can afford the highest paid lobbyist, the most access to politicians, and cozy relationships with staff in

Washingtonn Elite theory suggests that a small number of corporations control the

policy debate, effectively silencing all other groupsn From the book…

n Our conclusions about how well the Madisonian system works to control the power of special interests would depend on whether we used pluralist, elitist, or hyper pluralist

interpretations. A pluralist interpretation would suggest that Madison’s system has worked as intended. In an elitist interpretation, however, the wealthy hold too much

power, and in a hyper pluralist interpretation, too many groups have too much powern Free Rider Problem

n Large groups are difficult to organizen No one has any incentive to contribute to a cause if they are to receive the

benefit regardless of their contributionn Small groups are easier to organize, and you can know if someone is not

providing resourcesn The goods shared by large groups are often individually small, while small

groups often have big sums for individual membersn Contrary to Elite theory, the preponderance of “elite” interest groups might have less

to do with money and more to do with organizational abilitiesn Large groups can get people to join by offering incentives