Interest Groups Influencing The Democratic Process

For some, pressure groups are a fundamental part of democracy. To others, pressure groups undermine the whole principle of democracy. Democracy is a system of government where decisions are arrived at by majoritarian principles with representatives elected at periodic elections where political equality and political freedom allow the voter an effective choice between competing candidates in a secret ballot. How do pressure groups fit in with this concept?

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.

Many communities exist in our world. Some of them are large and others are small. Each group has its own circle of influence and impact on the world. One community that impacts groups is congressional leaders. These individuals are people just like ever other common person. The only difference is there role in our government which at times make them seen more important or more influential than others. Although this large groups of people carries a large scale of influence their influences and time as congressional leader should be limited.

In Chapter 11, “Political Parties, Party Systems, and Interests Groups” authors Dickovick and Eastwood talked about the important political concepts and types of political parties. The chapter begins with comparing two political opposites between the U.S and the Soviet Union. It expands on saying that the United States is run by two main political parties, but also smaller interest groups. The United States is based solely on out democratic system in, which the people elect their representatives to run certain positions. The United States economy is also supported by a capitalist system. On the other hand, it says that the Soviet Union is run by a mostly communist economy where the government benefits first. They are run by a single party totalitarian

In my opinion, I think that interest groups have both a positive and negative role in the American political system. Interest groups, as defined in the textbook, are “any non-party organization that engages in political activity”. That is to say, the group does not have to be associated to any political party to be considered an interest group; people who like to go bird watching could be considered an interest group if they go after the Republican party to promote bird rights. The positive side of interest groups is that they aid in the Democratic process by giving those without a voice a chance to speak up about issues that pertain to them. For example, the interest group that caters to Florida’s LGBT Community can give a Transgender person

To being, interest groups are an important part in a democracy. Representative democracy is a system of government where decisions are made using majoritarian principles and representatives are elected at periodic elections where the voter can make a choice between competing candidates in a ballot. (Axtmann, 2003) Interest

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate how political parties and interest groups are able to get citizens to participate in politics and political party participants or interest group members. This is a comparison and contrast paper. The following will be a comparison between political parties and interest groups. Three points will be mentioned. The first point will be the purpose, the second will be the role they play and finally three strategies parties and interest groups use to get people to participate.

Interest groups, are also called pressure groups, any organizations of people or organizations, normally organized, on the premise of one or more shared concern. All interest groups work together to influence government policies to benefit themselves or their reasons. Their objective could be an approach that only profit group members or one fragment of society (e.g., government subsidies for agriculturists) or an arrangement that advances a more extensive open reason (e.g., enhancing air quality). They attempt to accomplish their objectives by campaigning that is, by attempting to apply force as a powerful influence for policy makers to increase approach conclusions to support them. Interest groups are a natural outgrowth of the groups of interest that exist in all societies, from narrow groups, for example, the Japan Eraser Manufacturers Association to board group, for example, the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (Afl–CIO) and to significantly more extensive organization. Legislative issues and interests are conjoined. Interest is a predominant, perpetual, and key part of all political system. Democratic, and totalitarian administrations apparently equivalent. Moreover, interest groups exist at all levels of governmental institutions. (Thomas 2014). Some groups have more accomplishment of attaining their objectives than others. More frequently than not, it has nothing to do with the real importance of the reason. There are various causes

Interest groups have many benefits to the average American citizen, minorities, businesses, corporate leaders, those in agriculture, and various other groups of people. One of the ways that interest groups are beneficial to a democracy, a government of the people, is that it brings people together over one common goal or issue that they believe needs accomplished or changed. Interest groups bring issues to the government, either nationally or locally, that may otherwise be looked over or not noticed. Additionally, data or information can be brought to these governing bodies that they would not have had the access to

Interest groups have a strong influence in the waves of government, not just in Texas, but in all of the U.S. We all have certain issues or concerns that hit closer to home than others. When enough people get together in an organized fashion to form an interest group, the interest group's goal is to impact government in their favor. Interest groups try to persuade the public and government to understand the interest group's particular point of view (Newell et al. 72). Interest groups can be classified into six categories: economic, spiritual, artistic or recreational, ethnic, associations of local government, and public interest groups. Interest groups can be very powerful and influential depending on how much money their members can contribute

Many scholars agree that business interest groups are powerful political actors and influence the political process. Business interest groups often pay money to political campaigns in order to influence politicians into supporting the business interests of that company and not the interests of the regular citizens who are voting (Acherman,1975). The focus of this Literature Review is to discuss the research on the topic of voter efficacy and the corporate influence in politics.

Special interests groups which are also referred to pressure groups or interest groups are an organization of individuals who come together with a common concern, and they are usually formally organized with an aim to influence the public policy in their favor. The main objective of people who form special interest groups is to influence the government to make policies which are beneficial to them (Almond & Coleman, 2015). These groups may either be fighting for a single section in the society like subsidies for farmers or a common cause which affects the society like reducing global warming. They usually use the tactic of lobbying so that the government or the policy makers can make a policy which they need. The special groups are beneficial

The organization I’ve decided to research was the group, Human Rights Watch. Founded in 1978 with the aid of Helsinski Watch, an organization that adopted a way to publicly call out abusive governments through media. There have been other committees, Asia Watch, Africa Watch and Middle East Watch, earning the name “The Watch Committees.” They have all came together to create a bigger project, The Human Rights Watch.

The group of people working together to influence the politics and the government policies or decisions is known as interest group. It works on behalf of interest and concerns of the people which is the reason it is called as interest group. In the modern democracy, the government is for people and by the people. It should work for the people and should hear their voice. Even though government is formed by the elected representative from people, they cannot hear the voice of every people. In such situation, the decision and policy making of the government may not be in favor large group of people. It is the interest group who draws the attention of the decision makers in such issues to make decision in favor of people.

     Like political parties, pressure groups can be considered another system that connects the citizen more directly to government. However, at the same instant there are marked differences in both composition and function that define interest groups as different entities from larger political parties. According to V.O. Key Jr. in a composition appropriately entitled Pressure Groups; pressure groups “Ordinarily… concern themselves with only a narrow range of policies;” and unlike the goals of political parties, their intentions are to “influence the content of public policy rather than the results of elections.” Nevertheless, it is a realized fact that