What Is The Role Of Interest Groups In A Pluralist Democracy

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.

Dating back many decades, it appears that lobbying and politics have always gone hand and hand on any political stage. Lobbying has always had a strong presence in the legislation system. Lobbying is the process of offering campaign contributions, bribes, or information to policymakers for the purpose of achieving favorable policy outcomes. Conventional wisdom suggests that lobbying is the preferred mean for exerting political influence in rich countries and corruption in poor countries. The legislation is meant to benefit society and ensure that citizens are having their voices heard, instead of hindering them in favour of the multi-national corporations. Lobbying has a negative influence on legislations in both developed and developing

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.

Lobbying is an issue that has recently found itself at the forefront of the American politics. Many feel that lobbying is essentially a legalized form of bribery and has lead to the government catering to the needs of special interests instead of the interests of America at large. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 74% of Americans believe that elected officials place their own interests ahead of the country's. So it seems many Americans wonder who their representatives are actually representing. Lee Drutman, a political scientist, compares the current situation of

In simple words lobbying is way of influencing a person or employee who has the power to make or change the decision on their favor. Lobbyists especially work for interest groups, law firms and corporations. 1 Interest groups are non – profit and usually voluntary organization who have a common cause for which they seek to influence public policy without seeking any political control. Many corporations and foreign countries donate a great deal of

In this essay, I would like to reflect an online article on CBS News website, ‘‘Behind the closed doors of Washington Lobbyist” October 7,2012 by Sharyl Attkisson. According to Legal dictionary, ‘‘Lobbying is the process of influencing public and government policy at all levels: federal, state and local’’. This article describes how the lobbyist fingerprint are all over the bills coming from congress, the rules and regulation coming from the government. This means that they defeat bills and rules they don’t like or negatively affecting their clients while they promote and advocate the ones they like it. Thus, this article gives us a complete picture of the lobby business do its work in Washington DC.

An interest group also known as a special interest group or a lobby is an organized group of individuals, organizations, or businesses who share a goal. The interest group forms an alliance in support of their cause to influence public policy and government officials in the group 's favor. The goal of the group could be focused on small group, such as the Japan Eraser Manufacturer 's Association; or the goal could be focused on a large public group, such as family and friends of public school-aged children in the United States. Clive S. Thomas states, "The most important lobbying forces in any society are the various entities of government: national, regional, and local government agencies and institutions such as the military" (Thomas).

Lobbying is when special interest groups hire and pay a professional advocate to argue for specific legislation in law making bodies such as Congress. It has been going on since the Country’s inception and happens at every level of government. Corporations do most of it, and usually target congresspersons, but executive agency officials and US Supreme Court Appointments have been included.

In the United States, there are more than fifty different versions of lobbying laws in states and territories. On the Federal level, lobbying is defined as being “any communication made on behalf of a client to members of Congress, congressional staffers, the president, White House staff and high-level employees of nearly 200 agencies, regarding the formulation, modification, or adoption of legislation.” Though there is much disagreement about lobbyists, there have been laws enacted to try and control them and those who abuse lobbying. There is always room for improvement with regards to lobbying laws, because there is still your classic loop holes that people use to avoid being in violation of the law.

Lobbyists are a group of people who defend and advance their interests through lobbying which is to “inform, persuade, and pressure” policymakers to support the groups objective. With more policies set in place, the more lobbyists get involved and a great example is the financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. When the Obama administration stepped in and proposed to “repair the regulation and increase oversight,” the lobbyists were there to support and represent banks, mutual funds, credit card companies as well as companies in retail, manufacturing, and service that this proposal could affect.

It is believed that lobbyists have an immense influence on Congress and individual state legislatures. Lobbyists are defined differently by each state and territories, however, they all share a basic definition of lobbying as an effort to impact government action. Lobbyists can be either constituent groups, corporate employees and government officials, non-profit staffers or idealists, and registered lobbyists working for a lobbying firm. The sole purpose of lobbyists is to influence legislators’ agendas, become experts in latest news, establish relationships and study power, provide policy solutions to public problems, and build coalitions on behalf of their clients. Lobbyists are known to be the hackers in our system of government. Lobbyists

discussions and research. Thurber, James PHD in political science, director and founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and a distinguished Professor at the Public Affairs American University, acknowledges in his research paper “President Obama, Congress and the Battle with Interest Groups and Lobbyists” identifies lobbying as “fundamentally [able to] influence the way issues and problems [are] framed and ultimately the way policies are made in Washington” (3). Self interest groups and lobbyists should have power to influence through debate in the United States on domestic policies that affect U.S. citizens. However, there is a overwhelming amount of cash being poured into politics to persuade decisions. Not only from U.S. interests, but foreign interest groups are pouring millions of dollars into American lobbying groups to persuade U.S. policies that affect millions of American citizens nation wide.

Organized groups develop a lobbyist who acts on his or her behalf (pg.323). As a member of an organization that uses lobbyists to support our stated positions on issues, one may feel they are absolutely essential in today's political climate. One’s organization can be for a bill in the morning and totally against it by the end of the day due to amendments and rewording. As an individual, there is no way of tracking such things on a minute by minute basis, and if someone is not monitoring the legislation it may get passed with my apparent support when one was totally opposed to the final version. Much of this comes from political ineptness on the part of our elected officials, and part of it comes from the complexity of rules that are confused in the process. To reform the system, every lobbyist will wine and dine Congress to assure they still have plenty of access. A lobbyist can be good if they stick with just information and talk to the legislators. Right now the whole system stinks because too much money is passing hands and with most in Congress having their ego tied into the fact that they are in Congress they will do anything to stay there. Their importance cannot be

Lobbying is an enormous business. A lobbyist is an advocate who seek outs to influence members of the government (like members of Congress) to endorse legislation that would advantage their group. The lobbying occupation is a lawful and essential part of our democratic political procedure that is not extremely well implicit by the broad population. While the majority people think of lobbyists only as paid experts, there are as well a lot of volunteer lobbyists. Anyone who appeals the government or contacts their member of Congress to say an view is functioning as a lobbyist. Lobbying is a synchronized industry and a guarded activity beneath the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that

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