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The Influence Of Interest Groups

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Intro Interest groups and PACS play a large role in American society but are they really the ones shaping the way this country is run? The goal of this research is to see if interest groups and PACs influence the way the United States is ran by contributions to candidates and the two national committees that help run each party. The financing of both candidates and committees will be based the most recent presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The figures that will be seen are about the number of policies that have been influenced through Interest groups and finical contributions made by Interest groups.
Interest Groups and PACs James Madison made a warning about interest groups long ago and that they would be …show more content…

When trying to come up with a definition for interest groups it is rather difficult. The reason it is so toilsome is because that interest group is a very ambiguous term. This research paper will be going with the quintessential definition of interest groups and that is “A group of people who try to influence politics or the policies of government, business, etc., in a way that helps their own interests” (Webster’s Dictionary). There are also very many different ways that people believe that interest groups operate, ways people join and the different types of interest groups. I am going to subscribe to the way Mancur Olson stated. To sum up his work he stated that interest groups are formed after peoples’ own self interest and will only go after those interest if it benefits those people who are involved in the group. The group formed due to the fact that multiple people have the same interest and they formed together to get their collective interest furthered. He also noted that there are three different types of groups: privileged groups which are groups that would get more out of a good if it was publically provided instead of the group providing it, intermediate groups which if a …show more content…

Interest groups tend to be ideological as well siding with the right or left whichever one better fits their ideology. Today it is that most interest groups that contribute to candidates and the two national committees, it is that fact we are making the claim that interest groups that have a larger influence on the way the United States are today are the privileged groups. PACs and interest groups are very similar to one another the difference being that PACs is more business related. PAC stands for political actions committee and they operate very similar to interest groups but tend to be more business oriented. Interest groups are often business related but not all of them are. The Federal Election Committee describes PACs as “ two distinct types of political committees

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