To What Extent Do Pressure Groups Undermine Democracy in the Us?

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.

Collective action problems arise in politics because as individuals we are conflicted between our own interest and the interest of the group. Our choice is either to be selfish or cooperate with the group. “It involves building, combining, mixing, and amalgamating people’s individual goals” (Lowi, et al. 13). There are three main theories as to why collective action problems exist. First, according to Mancur Olson individuals are tempted to free-ride which is getting a benefit without contributing to it and that no individual is incentivized to work for the collective good. (Lowi, et al 571). Free-riding becomes a bigger issues as a group gets larger. Second, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a theory in which there are two individuals in a situation were neither has an incentive to cooperate although both would be better off if they did cooperate. Third, the tragedy of commons occurs when individuals’ use of a resource causes its depletion however it’s supposed to be shared by everyone. Collective action problems are difficult to solve because a group is formed to achieve common goals however as individuals we have different objectives and preferences. This is most evident in politics. My goal in this paper is to provide three different solutions to collective action problems in politics specifically in political parties, electoral process and interest groups.

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.

Strategies for political power exists when interest groups attempting to influence government politicians. Interest groups will speak to politicians for their and

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.

Public interest lobbies form a linkage element between citizens and governmental elites. In lobbying they articulate what they perceive to be the issue positions of certain sectors of society. Public interest groups also play an important role in facilitating the political participation of their members and related attentive publics. By helping to bring new issues to the table, interest groups influence the shape of political agendas.

The Pluralist structure illustrates power as the aftermath of the collection of different interest groups haggling for the

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

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 pressure group is a group of people with specific aims and interests. Also known as interest groups, lobby groups or protest groups, they try to influence political decision makers such as MPs and councillors to influence local or national policy and/or legislation. They seek to do so, either to protect interests of members (e.g. Trade Unions, NUT) or promote a cause (e.g. Greenpeace or RSPCA). Not all pressure groups are as successful as others, and there are many reasons for this.

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

Political parties and interest groups play important roles in government. These groups have similarities and differences that I will be approaching, after identifying the function of each group. Their aims, interests, policies and goals are what distinguish them apart.

Pressure Groups Being Good for Democracy Pressure groups are organisations whose members share common interests and seek to influence governments. They can be classified in several different ways but the most important distinction is between insider and outsider groups. They are organisations that want to change policy but do not want to become the government. They focus on particular issues or areas of concern and can become involved in policy making by organising campaigns, sending letters, organising demonstrations and signing petitions. People join pressure groups to show their support for a particular issue and to join with other like-minded people in trying to influence our politicians.

Furthermore, this increase also implies that political awareness of the public has shifted away from party politics to pressure groups. Over half of the cause groups now in existence

The pluralist view of the state came about as an objection to state sovereignty, out of fear that the state would remain totalitarian if power was only exercised within the state as opposed to distributed amongst society as a whole (Schwarzmantel, 1994; Smith, 2006). Pluralists ‘are said to have a naive theory of how the state behaves ‘neutrally’ in a liberal democracy’ (Dunleavy and O’Leary, 1987:41), as it is impossible for the state to behave in such a way when power can never truly be distributed equally and is held within the state in itself. As Nicholls (1975) affirms, those who wanted a decentralised state were attacked because oligarchy