Role Of Interest Groups In Political Parties

The ideology of pluralism is based on creating balance by distributing power evenly across culture and population. Political elitism is most often a small group of upper-class people who hold political positions solely with the intent to gain economic wealth, even in opposition to the public’s best interest. Plural-elitism is a mix of the two, where many elitist groups share a pluralistic relationship with each other. The American government uses neither fully pluralistic, nor fully elitist views, but a mix of the two resulting in a plural-elitist

Presently, there are three theories that have been posed to explain the American political process. They are, elite theory, hyperpluralism, and pluralism. While all of them have sufficient evidence in regard to discussion and debate, pluralism undoubtedly best explains the American political process. Pluralism states that our democracy is best achieved by the existence and cooperation between various groups, and individuals, which participate in government by means of election. In context of American politics, pluralism is the core which our political process revolves around.

American Politics Today defined Interest groups as “organizations of people who share common political interests and aim to influence public policy by electioneering and lobbying. Lobbying involves convincing an elected official or bureaucrat to help enact a law, craft a regulation, or do something else that a group wants”. Thus, America being a nation that welcomes new ideas and ways of doing things, will probably surfer set-backs if it place limits on one of the most used gateways (interest groups ) of its citizens to the Government. For example, if tomorrow the federal government decides that for national security reasons all phone and internet communications must be recorded. Imagine the impact this will have on U.S Tech companies; people will drastically reduce the rate they use phones and internet; stocks of companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft etc. Will go down. And at the end of the day these Tech firms are denial the possibility of reaching the government through limitations on interest group.

A major problem that many representative democracies had, and still have, is securing minorities rights within a system ruled by the majority of that country. This is when the term modern pluralism comes into light. Modern pluralism is the idea that having a large number of parties within a government will create more power in the system, which ensures that not a single group will contain total control.

Pluralism paints a really blushing picture of how intrigue gatherings work in American legislative issues. One approach that is to some extent propelled by the issue of vote based citizenship yet which endeavors to save a few components of uniformity against the elitist feedback is the vested party pluralist record of governmental issues. Initial articulation of the perspective is intense. In this origination of the popularity based procedure, every resident is an individual from a vested party with barely characterized intrigues that are firmly associated with their regular lives. On these subjects nationals should be great educated and inspired by having an impact. Or if nothing else, elites from each of the vested parties that are moderately

Two-tiered pluralism differs from pluralism because of the effect it has upon the minority groups of the nation. While there is an equal legal backing for all racial and ethnic communities, minorities are still undermined by the system thus becoming segregated. Moreover in politics, minority groups tend to be under seclusion even though the current enacted laws grant equality at all stages. The amount of resources given to minorities are very different to elites leading to the practices and outcomes to be unequal (Lecture 6). Pluralism is very different from the two-tiered pluralism framework as it focuses upon group-based competition and that everyone has equal opportunities

The United States government is commonly referred to as a “Duopoly”, which means that there are two established political parties, Democratic and Republic, and that these two parties share the vast majority of the political power in the country. This is because the United States follows a winner-takes-all voting system, utilizing a “single-member district plurality”. The “single-member district” portion means that for each geographic area or district, there is only one elected official, and the “plurality” portion means that in United States elections, the representative or politician who receives the most number of votes, wins the given election, even if it’s less than half the percentage of votes. According to Duverger’s law, a Political Science principle, plurality voting procedures correlationally support the emergence of only two political parties, in contrast to a multiparty democracy.

Pluralism stems from the idea that “a multitude of groups, not the people as a whole, govern the United States” (Udel.edu). These groups include labor unions, civil rights activists, lobbyists, and environmentalists, as well as many others. Pluralists argue that “Public policy is the outcome of group forces pushing against one another” (Barry 4). Some would say that a Pluralist government is undemocratic, seeing as the power does not lie with individuals, and therefore should not become the American way of life. Pluralists themselves, however, would argue that in fact a democratic government is undesirable, seeing as most everyday people are not educated on politics, and therefore really should not have much of an influence on political decisions. Furthermore, they would argue that Pluralism is

I believe the pluralism theory best explains the American political process because, it speaks on the existence of classes, it emphasizes how the larger the group the bigger the influence it will have, and it is based on power being dispersed. These facts coincide with America’s current political process. To begin analyzing the pluralism theory we have to first take note that it states, most decision making happens in the framework of the government, but groups will use their resources to influence these choices.

Representatives are in place to be manipulated to meet society’s demands after all. Schattschneilder goes on by explaining that in a representative democracy there are conflicts in which the audience, or the people, play a large part in the conclusion of the issue. This is called the scope of the problem. In the United States’ government however, there are political parties and other interest groups that direct the outcome of conflicts as well. These figures in politics sway public opinion and scope to win over a conflict or to win an election. With so many factors contributing to the solution of a problem, how does anything get done in the government? Schattschneilder believes that this is what actually makes the government work and include the public opinion as well. To win public support and the scope in a conflict, political parties and special interest groups must follow the popular

Pluralism is the belief where minority groups maintain their power and is treated with equal power. It is seen as the theory of masses or equality among people. Pluralists look up to their role-model figures like Robert A. Dahl and Seymour Lipset. Robert Alan Dahl, widely known as the dean of American political scientists, was the one who established the pluralist theory in the mid 1900’s. His influence has been transmitted through his early books such as A Preface to Democratic Theory (1956), Who Governs? (1961), and Pluralist Democracy in the United States (1967).

Pluralist theory views politics and decision making as a competitive phenomenon where different groups and individuals have different views and that there is no single elite group that exercises influence (Davis & Go, 2009). The theory holds that power is relatively broadly distributed among different interest groups. These groups hold different views of the same aspect and compete with each other for

“A pluralistic society with pluralism” is what the United States has always strived towards (Friedman). The mixing of many cultures, ethnicities, and minorities is something that America has been known for as long as it has been a country. For many citizens the idea of pluralism is closely linked to the ideals of the American Dream; the idea that every citizen of this country shares an equal opportunity through determination, a strong work ethic, and initiative. Through these methods every United States citizen should, in theory, be able to achieve both prosperity and success. However this theory, whilst wonderful as a hypothesis, is rarely proven to be true. In fact, it can be said that the American Dream is dead. The middle class of America,

The first element of government that halts progress in America is the hyperpluralist theory, an extension of the pluralist theory. Edwards, Lineberry and Wattenberg state that “According to pluralist theory, because of open access to various institutions of government and public officials, organized groups can compete with one another for control over policy and no one group or set of groups dominates” (16). Basically, the pluralist theory states that for every group, there exists another group with opposing views or goals and they help serve each other through compromise. The hyperpluralist theory, on the other hand, argues that these different groups can counteract each other, diminishing any progress that the other group achieved. Without power over the others, a group cannot push its agenda without the opposing group pushing its own agenda to set that group back. A positive aspect of this theory is that it prevents one group from dominating; however, it discourages any changes from happening in government. Edwards, Lineberry, and Wattenberg

Political parties and Interest groups are very crucial in our politic life. The role they play is even though important can hurt democracy at the same time, based on the effect they have on elections and the balance of power between the groups’ financial capacities and abilities to raise money for campaigns. According to the text book new candidates are facing real challenge because of the incumbents who are already functioning in the House and known to the political world. Added to that, party leaders prefer to go with the incumbents than financing the candidates unable to raise money. The interest groups are more focus on white collar people the so called upper middle and upper class which is one reason they are considered as bias. Meanwhile,