Interest Groups Case Study

In a pluralist democracy like in the United States, interest groups have played a major role throughout the history through highly organized factions and are aimed at different levels of government. Lobbying is one of the tactics of the interest groups to aid their agenda through implementing new laws and regulations. "If you want to have your face in the light, you should have your back in the dark". Similarly, the influences of the interests groups and lobbyists have good and bad effects on the people and the society.

Interest groups can be both bad and good for democracy. The interest groups are able to lobby to congress to help out different organizations. They basically work on a “you do a favor for me and I’ll do a favor for you later” basis. This gives the lobbyist an influence over congress. They can be bad for the democracy because too much influence and power can be a bad thing. The issue they are lobbying for may not be a good cause.

It is evident that interest groups have more of an influence than a citizen’s ability to

All these wealthy groups and people would benefit from passing of a certain law. For example, big banks and central banks have an interest group, who uses congressmen to try to influence politicians so that they won’t make strict policy regarding banks systems and how they operate. Those rules may be affect banks or big business in generating fewer profits. Majority believe that it is a bad thing that interest groups and lobbyists are involved in legislating because their voices and ideas do not come directly from ordinary citizens. Their interest to grow their business and wealth may not benefit the general ordinary citizens of United States. The big business and wealthy groups may try to influence a bill to be passed for their interest and not for the interest of the general public. Nevertheless, Congressmen may listen to the big central banks because they have money to play around with. This includes donating to Congress campaigns to be

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) generally enters into legal disputes related to Bill of Rights issues.

Both sides of the topic have gripping reasons why they feel the way they do. The supporters believe that lobbying is acceptable and contributes to a healthy democracy. In this light, lobbyists are simply seeking power within governmental and public affairs. In the United States our political system is based on power, authority, and legitimacy. One of our nation’s values is the fact that people can and should try to influence our political system; individuals have the power to bring attention to important issues, matters of public concern, and current problems. Supports argue that lobbying cannot contribute to the demise of American democracy. All these factors contribute to what is our political system and lobbyists are arguably doing their best to advocate for the people, even if huge sums of money are involved.

They own the elections and can shape the entirety of them, it is unfair to the average person because the ideals of the person they are voting for can be easily swayed by money from a special interest groups. Now that out of the way it leaves us with the issue of money, you can not have an election without money and financial backers. However left unchecked this could be a dangerous tool as proven by special interest groups who have led to the outcome of decisions throughout history. In the late 1800’s it was the sugar and banana lobbies that made us go into the latin countries and colonize them because it was the proper place to grow their crops.throughout the 1900’s the cigarette lobbies fought for laws to back them and not having to make them show what is in cigarettes. How do we solve this you ask? Well you show who is backing you and how much money they gave you this would show what the cause for every action you make is. If they are being backed by a big industry like oil and they put in place a law that favors oil and we will know why because money talks and it has some crazy ideas sometimes. These special interest groups are the real power behind the election along with the electoral college.

In my opinion, I feel that constituents have power over congress members because they have the power to vote them in or out of office. On the other hand, I feel that voting constituents have the least amount of influence over congress members, who strive for money contributions in order to, run their political campaigns, compared to donors and PACs.

During the study that discovered this information, the researchers found that individuals with a lot of money and business-control interest groups helped mold these policies. According to the information we were taught in class, an interest group is “organization of people who seek to promote a particular viewpoint about a public policy.” The article continues by suggesting that average citizens should change the relationship between them and their government. According to the study called, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens," the amount of influence ordinary Americans have when controlling for the power of economic elites and organized interest groups is not significant. This is when they discovered how much influence rich people and business-dominated interest groups actually have. Also, business-dominated interest groups have more influence than mass-based interest groups. They believe this is due to the rich and business interests are able to hire lobbyist that “shadow” legislation in Washington and to “fill campaign coffers” of political candidates. From what I learned in class, lobbyist are people who are hired by businesses and causes. They then try to convince legislators to assist the business or cause. Due to the rich and business interests hiring lobbyist for this reason, they have more say in national policies.

But interest groups do not have a real place in congress. For them to affect motions in congress they need to utilise their powers of persuasion to influence the right people.

People are important for the success of democracy. After electing their representatives, some individuals wish to be more involved in legislative decisions that affect them, so they take to lobbying and joining interest groups. This often provides them with an atmosphere of individuals who think like they do, while also allowing them to play more of a role than just voting for a few people to represent them. Lobbying and interest groups also allow for issues to be brought to the attention of the legislature and provide a way for these groups to talk to the legislators, whether it is over dinner or at a concert. By voicing their opinions and placing pressures on the legislation, these groups have become successful in fighting for their passions and their views on important

The most common activity for interest groups is lobbying. But that is not the only activity they are involved in, they are also involved in activities like forming Political Action Committees (PAC’s) and election activities. Lobbying is done by groups to influence the government decisions on policies. In the United States, almost all of the interest groups employ lobbyists to influence policy making. Lobbyists work to try to persuade governmental officials. Some ways they achieve their goals are persuasion, economic leverage, and disruption. The most important rule to lobbying is the entrance. You must be able to influence an official. The more spread out the interest groups money is throughout the country, the more likely it is that the legislators will listen to the concerns of that group.

They have the ability to pressure elected officials to enact legislation favorable to its causes. There are three major types of interest groups. Animal rights groups and environmental interest groups usually organize as public interest groups. These groups claim to work not for self-interest but for the best interest of the public. Underpaid professional workers also organize as groups and include labor unions. The problem at hand is that the most common type of interest group is formed around business, corporations, and trade associations. They represent half of all interest groups and certainly hold political power (U.S. History,

Says Grossmann on page 3, “interest groups often play a central role in setting the government agenda…[and] are often found to have a substantial impact on policy outcomes.” Many political candidates from both sides of the partisan aisle have run on a platform of neutralizing the force of special interests in Washington, and this illuminates why that’s an important issue. Special interests lobby because they have something to gain from the result of the policy, or those they represent do. It’s not always a nefarious intention, but the parochial nature of special interests is in conflict with policy that affects the American public at large, and those interests often win out because they wield power over lawmakers at the national, state and local

The most widely recognized type of interest group is referred to as associational. This is what most people envision when they picture a typical interest group. There are two different distinctions within this group: economic and noneconomic. Both of these types of groups are the backbone of interest groups. Economic groups rally around a shared economic interest, such as unions, truckers association, ect. A noneconomic group supports a non-profit organization, or a related cause, such as NAACP, environmental groups, ect. Noneconomic groups have a larger impact on policy making than economic groups. This is because the American parties tend to "straddle the fence" on issues more so than in other countries.