what do interest-group politics tend to reflect the bias of?
Learning Objectives
By the finish of this section, you will exist able to:
- Analyze how interest groups provide a means for political participation
- Discuss contempo changes to interest groups and the way they operate in the The states
- Explain why lower socioeconomic status citizens are not well represented by involvement groups
- Identify the barriers to involvement group participation in the U.s.a.
Interest groups offer individuals an important artery for political participation. Tea Party protests, for case, gave individuals all over the country the opportunity to vocalism their opposition to government actions and control. Likewise, the Occupy Wall Street motion as well gave a voice to those individuals frustrated with economic inequality and the influence of large corporations on the public sector. Individually, the protestors would likely accept received picayune notice, simply by joining with others, they drew substantial attention in the media and from lawmakers. While the Tea Party motility might non meet the definition of interest groups presented earlier, its aims have been promoted past established interest groups. Other opportunities for participation that involvement groups offer or encourage include voting, campaigning, contacting lawmakers, and informing the public about causes.
In 2011, an Occupy Wall Street protestor highlights that the concerns of individual citizens are non always heard by those in the seats of power. (credit: Timothy Krause)
Grouping Participation every bit Borough Date
Joining involvement groups can assistance facilitate civic appointment, which allows people to feel more connected to the political and social community. Some interest groups develop equally grassroots movement s, which often begin from the lesser upwardly among a pocket-size number of people at the local level. Interest groups can amplify the voices of such individuals through proper organization and allow them to participate in means that would be less effective or even impossible lonely or in small numbers. The Tea Political party is an example of a so-chosen astroturf movement, because information technology is non, strictly speaking, a grassroots motion. Many trace the party'due south origins to groups that champion the interests of the wealthy such as Americans for Prosperity and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Although many ordinary citizens support the Tea Party because of its opposition to revenue enhancement increases, it attracts a corking deal of back up from elite and wealthy sponsors, some of whom are agile in lobbying. The FreedomWorks political action group (PAC), for example, is a bourgeois advocacy group that has supported the Tea Party motion. FreedomWorks is an offshoot of the interest group Citizens for a Audio Economy, which was founded by billionaire industrialists David H. and Charles G. Koch in 1984.
According to political scientists Jeffrey Drupe and Clyde Wilcox, interest groups provide a means of representing people and serve as a link between them and authorities.[1] Interest groups besides let people to actively work on an issue in an effort to influence public policy. Another role of interest groups is to help brainwash the public. Someone concerned virtually the surround may not demand to know what an acceptable level of sulfur dioxide is in the air, only past joining an environmental involvement group, he or she can remain informed when air quality is poor or threatened by legislative action. A number of pedagogy-related interests have been very active following cuts to education spending in many states, including North Carolina, Mississippi, and Wisconsin, to name a few.
Interest groups as well help frame issues, unremarkably in a mode that best benefits their cause. Abortion rights advocates oftentimes employ the term "pro-choice" to frame abortion equally an private's private choice to be fabricated free of government interference, while an anti-abortion group might use the term "pro-life" to frame its position every bit protecting the life of the unborn. "Pro-life" groups often label their opponents equally "pro-abortion," rather than "pro-option," a distinction that can affect the way the public perceives the issue. Similarly, scientists and others who believe that homo activeness has had a negative effect on the earth's temperature and weather condition patterns attribute such phenomena as the increasing frequency and severity of storms to "climate change." Industrialists and their supporters refer to alterations in the earth'southward climate as "global warming." Those who dispute that such a change is taking place tin can thus point to blizzards and depression temperatures as evidence that the globe is non becoming warmer.
Interest groups also try to become problems on the regime agenda and to monitor a variety of regime programs. Following the passage of the ACA, numerous involvement groups have been monitoring the implementation of the law, hoping to use successes and failures to justify their positions for and against the legislation. Those opposed have utilized the court arrangement to try to modify or eliminate the law, or have lobbied executive agencies or departments that have a role in the police force'south implementation. Similarly, teachers' unions, parent-teacher organizations, and other education-related interests have monitored implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act promoted and signed into law by President George Westward. Bush-league.
Involvement Groups as a Response to Riots
The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) movement owes a great bargain to the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and in particular to the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village. These were a series of violent responses to a police raid on the bar, a popular gathering place for members of the LGBT community. The riots culminated in a number of arrests only also raised awareness of the struggles faced past members of the gay and lesbian community.[2] The Stonewall Inn has recently been granted landmark status by New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The Stonewall Inn in New York City'due south Greenwich Village was the site of arrests and riots in 1969 that, like the edifice itself, became an important landmark in the LGBT movement. (credit: Steven Damron)
The Castro district in San Francisco, California, was also home to a significant LGBT customs during the same fourth dimension period. In 1978, the community was shocked when Harvey Milk, a gay local activist and sitting member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, was assassinated by a former city supervisor due to political differences.[3] This resulted in protests in San Francisco and other cities across the country and the mobilization of interests concerned about gay and lesbian rights.
Today, advocacy interest organizations like Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Council are at the forefront in supporting members of the LGBT community and popularizing a number of relevant issues. They played an active role in the effort to legalize same-sex activity matrimony in individual states and after nationwide. Now that same-sex marriage is legal, these organizations and others are dealing with bug related to standing discrimination confronting members of this community. One current debate centers around whether an private's religious freedom allows him or her to deny services to members of the LGBT community.
What do you lot feel are lingering issues for the LGBT community? What approaches could you accept to aid increase attending and back up for gay and lesbian rights? Do yous think someone's religious beliefs should allow them the liberty to discriminate against members of the LGBT customs? Why or why non?
Trends in Public Involvement Group Formation and Activity
A number of changes in interest groups have taken place over the final three or four decades in the The states. The nigh pregnant alter is the tremendous increase in both the number and type of groups.[4] Political scientists often examine the diversity of registered groups, in office to determine how well they reflect the multifariousness of interests in social club. Some areas may be dominated by certain industries, while others may reflect a multitude of interests. Some interests appear to take increased at greater rates than others. For case, the number of institutions and corporate interests has increased both in Washington and in united states. Telecommunication companies like Verizon and AT&T will lobby Congress for laws benign to their businesses, simply they also target united states because country legislatures make laws that can benefit or harm their activities. At that place has also been an increment in the number of public interest groups that represent the public as opposed to economical interests. U.Due south. PIRG is a public interest group that represents the public on bug including public health, the environment, and consumer protection.[5]
Public Interest Enquiry Groups
Public involvement research groups (PIRGs) take increased in recent years, and many now exist nationally and at the state level. PIRGs represent the public in a multitude of issue areas, ranging from consumer protection to the environment, and like other interests, they provide opportunities for people to brand a difference in the political process. PIRGs endeavor to promote the common or public skilful, and well-nigh issues they favor affect many or even all citizens. Educatee PIRGs focus on issues that are important to students, including tuition costs, textbook costs, new voter registration, sustainable universities, and homelessness. Consider the cost of a college education. You may desire to inquiry how pedagogy costs take increased over fourth dimension. Are toll increases similar beyond universities and colleges? Are they similar across states? What might explicate similarities and differences in tuition costs? What solutions might help address the rising costs of higher education?
How tin you get involved in the drive for affordable higher pedagogy? Consider why students might become engaged in it and why they might not exercise so. A number of countries have made tuition gratis or nearly free. [half-dozen]Is this feasible or desirable in the United States? Why or why non?
Take a expect at the website for Student PIRGs. What problems does this interest group address? Are these issues important to you? How can you get involved? Visit this section of their site to learn more well-nigh their position on financing higher teaching.
What are the reasons for the increase in the number of involvement groups? In some cases, it simply reflects new interests in society. Xl years ago, stem prison cell research was non an issue on the government agenda, but as science and engineering science advanced, its techniques and possibilities became known to the media and the public, and a number of interests began lobbying for and against this type of research. Medical research firms and medical associations volition entrance hall in favor of greater spending and increased inquiry on stem cell research, while some religious organizations and anti-abortion groups will oppose it. Equally societal attitudes change and new problems develop, and every bit the public becomes aware of them, we can expect to see the rise of interests addressing them.
The devolution of power likewise explains some of the increase in the number and blazon of interests, at to the lowest degree at the state level. Every bit power and responsibility shifted to state governments in the 1980s, the states began to handle responsibilities that had been nether the jurisdiction of the federal government. A number of federal welfare programs, for example, are generally administered at the land level. This means interests might be better served targeting their lobbying efforts in Albany, Raleigh, Austin, or Sacramento, rather than only in Washington, DC. Equally usa have become more agile in more policy areas, they have become prime targets for interests wanting to influence policy in their favor.[seven]
We accept also seen increased specialization by some interests and even fragmentation of existing interests. While the American Medical Association may take a stand up on stalk prison cell research, the outcome is not critical to the everyday activities of many of its members. On the other paw, stem prison cell research is highly salient to members of the American Neurological Association, an interest organization that represents academic neurologists and neuroscientists. Accordingly, unlike interests represent the more specialized needs of different specialties inside the medical community, only fragmentation tin occur when a big interest like this has diverging needs. Such was besides the example when several unions carve up from the AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations), the nation'south largest federation of unions, in 2005.[8] Improved technology and the evolution of social media have made information technology easier for smaller groups to form and to attract and communicate with members. The utilise of the Cyberspace to heighten money has also made it possible for fifty-fifty small groups to receive funding.
None of this suggests that an unlimited number of interests can exist in society. The size of the economy has a bearing on the number of interests, but but up to a certain point, afterward which the number increases at a declining rate. Equally we will see below, the limit on the number of interests depends on the available resource and levels of competition.
Over the final few decades, nosotros have also witnessed an increment in professionalization in lobbying and in the sophistication of lobbying techniques. This was not always the case, considering lobbying was not considered a serious profession in the mid-twentieth century. Over the past three decades, there has been an increase in the number of contract lobbying firms. These firms are often effective because they bring pregnant resources to the table, their lobbyists are knowledgeable virtually the issues on which they lobby, and they may have existing relationships with lawmakers. In fact, relationships betwixt lobbyists and legislators are often ongoing, and these are critical if lobbyists desire access to lawmakers. However, not every involvement tin can afford to hire loftier-priced contract lobbyists to represent information technology. As the table suggests, a groovy deal of coin is spent on lobbying activities.
| Top Lobbying Firms in 2014 | |
|---|---|
| Lobbying Business firm | Total Lobbying Annual Income |
| Alike, Gump et al. | $35,550,000 |
| Squire Patton Boggs | $31,540,000 |
| Podesta Group | $25,070,000 |
| Brownstein, Hyatt et al. | $23,400,000 |
| Van Scoyoc Assoc. | $21,420,000 |
| Holland & Knight | $19,250,000 |
| Capitol Counsel | $17,930,000 |
| Chiliad&Fifty Gates | $17,420,000 |
| Williams & Jensen | $16,430,000 |
| BGR Group | $15,470,000 |
| Peck Madigan Jones | $13,395,000 |
| Cornerstone Government Affairs | $13,380,000 |
| Ernst & Immature | $12,440,000 |
| Hogan Lovells | $12,410,000 |
| Capitol Tax Partners | $12,390,000 |
| Cassidy & Assoc. | $12,090,000 |
| Tearing, Isakowitz & Blalock | $11,970,000 |
| Covington & Burling | $11,537,000 |
| Mehlman, Castagnetti et al. | $11,180,000 |
| Alpine Grouping | $10,950,00 |
We take also seen greater limits on inside lobbying activities. In the by, many lobbyists were described as "proficient ol' boys" who oft provided gifts or other favors in exchange for political access or other considerations. Today, restrictions limit the types of gifts and benefits lobbyists can bestow on lawmakers. There are certainly fewer "adept ol' boy" lobbyists, and many lobbyists are at present full-time professionals. The regulation of lobbying is addressed in greater item beneath.
How Representative Is the Interest Group System?
Participation in the United States has never been equal; wealth and education, components of socioeconomic condition, are strong predictors of political date.[9]
We already discussed how wealth tin help overcome collective activity bug, but lack of wealth also serves as a barrier to participation more generally. These types of barriers pose challenges, making information technology less likely for some groups than others to participate.[x] Some institutions, including big corporations, are more likely to participate in the political process than others, but because they have tremendous resources. And with these resources, they can write a check to a political campaign or hire a lobbyist to stand for their organization. Writing a cheque and hiring a lobbyist are unlikely options for a disadvantaged grouping.
A protestor at an Occupy Times Foursquare rally in October 2011. (credit: Geoff Stearns)
Individually, the poor may non have the same opportunities to bring together groups.[eleven] They may work two jobs to brand ends run into and lack the free time necessary to participate in politics. Further, in that location are often fiscal barriers to participation. For someone who punches a time-clock, spending time with political groups may be costly and paying dues may be a hardship. Certainly, the poor are unable to hire expensive lobbying firms to represent them. Structural barriers like voter identification laws may likewise disproportionately affect people with low socioeconomic condition, although the effects of these laws may non be fully understood for some time.
The poor may also have depression levels of efficacy, which refers to the conviction that you can make a divergence or that regime cares about you and your views. People with depression levels of efficacy are less likely to participate in politics, including voting and joining interest groups. Therefore, they are oftentimes underrepresented in the political arena.
Minorities may also participate less frequently than the majority population, although when nosotros command for wealth and education levels, we come across fewer differences in participation rates. Still, there is a bias in participation and representation, and this bias extends to interest groups as well. For example, when fast food workers across the United States went on strike to need an increase in their wages, they could do lilliputian more than than take to the streets bearing signs, like the protestors shown in the paradigm below. Their opponents, the owners of restaurant chains and others who pay their employees minimum wage, could hire groups such every bit the Employment Policies Institute, which paid for billboard ads in Times Square in New York Metropolis. The billboards implied that raising the minimum wage was an insult to people who worked hard and discouraged people from getting an pedagogy to better their lives.[12]
Unlike their opponents, these minimum-wage workers in Minnesota have limited ways to brand their interests known to government. Still, they were able to increase their political efficacy by joining fast nutrient workers in a nationwide strike on April 15, 2015, to call for a $15 per hour minimum wage and improved working weather condition. (credit: "Fibonacci Blue"/Flickr)
Finally, people exercise not often participate considering they lack the political skill to do so or believe that it is impossible to influence government actions.[13] They might also lack interest or could be blah. Participation usually requires some knowledge of the political organisation, the candidates, or the issues. Younger people in item are often contemptuous nigh government'southward response to the needs of non-elites.
How do these observations translate into the fashion different interests are represented in the political arrangement? Some pluralist scholars similar David Truman suggest that people naturally join groups and that there will be a great deal of competition for access to decision-makers.[14]
Scholars who subscribe to this pluralist view presume this competition among diverse interests is good for democracy. Political theorist Robert Dahl argued that "all active and legitimate groups had the potential to make themselves heard."[fifteen] In many ways, this is an optimistic assessment of representation in the United States.
However, not all scholars accept the premise that mobilization is natural and that all groups have the potential for access to decision-makers. The elite critique suggests that certain interests, typically businesses and the wealthy, are advantaged and that policies more than often reverberate their wishes than anyone else's. Political scientist East. Eastward. Schattschneider noted that "the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upperclass accent."[xvi]
A number of scholars accept suggested that businesses and other wealthy interests are oft overrepresented before government, and that poorer interests are at a comparative disadvantage.[17] For example, every bit nosotros've seen, wealthy corporate interests have the means to hire in-house lobbyists or loftier-priced contract lobbyists to represent them. They can also afford to make financial contributions to politicians, which at least may grant them admission. The ability to overcome commonage action issues is non equally distributed across groups; as Mancur Olson noted, modest groups and those with economic advantages were meliorate off in this regard.[18] Disadvantaged interests face up many challenges including shortages of resources, time, and skills.
A written report of virtually xviii hundred policy decisions made over a twenty-year period revealed that the interests of the wealthy have much greater influence on the government than those of average citizens. The approval or disapproval of proposed policy changes by average voters had relatively piffling upshot on whether the changes took identify. When wealthy voters disapproved of a particular policy, it near never was enacted. When wealthy voters favored a particular policy, the odds of the policy proposal'southward passing increased to more 50 percent.[19]
Indeed, the preferences of those in the top x percent of the population in terms of income had an bear upon fifteen times greater than those of average income. In terms of the event of interest groups on policy, Gilens and Page found that business involvement groups had twice the influence of public involvement groups.[20]
The graph below shows contributions by interests from a variety of dissimilar sectors. We can depict a few notable observations from the table. Get-go, large sums of money are spent by different interests. Second, many of these interests are business sectors, including the existent manor sector, the insurance industry, businesses, and law firms.
The chart above shows the dollar amounts contributed from PACs, soft coin (including directly from corporate and marriage treasuries), and individual donors to Democratic (blueish) and Republican (red) federal candidates and political parties during the 2015–2016 election cycle, equally reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Involvement group politics are oftentimes characterized by whether the groups have access to determination-makers and can participate in the policy-making procedure. The iron triangle is a hypothetical arrangement among 3 elements (the corners of the triangle): an interest group, a congressional committee fellow member or chair, and an agency within the hierarchy.[21]
Each chemical element has a symbiotic relationship with the other two, and it is difficult for those outside the triangle to interruption into it. The congressional committee members, including the chair, rely on the involvement group for campaign contributions and policy information, while the interest group needs the commission to consider laws favorable to its view. The interest group and the committee demand the agency to implement the police force, while the agency needs the interest group for data and the commission for funding and autonomy in implementing the law.[22]
An alternating explanation of the arrangement of duties carried out in a given policy area past interest groups, legislators, and agency bureaucrats is that these actors are the experts in that given policy expanse. Hence, perhaps they are the ones nigh qualified to process policy in the given area. Some view the fe triangle idea as outdated. Hugh Heclo of George Mason University has sketched a more open up design he calls an issue network that includes a number of different interests and political actors that work together in back up of a single issue or policy.[23]
Some involvement group scholars take studied the relationship amidst a multitude of involvement groups and political actors, including former elected officials, the way some interests form coalitions with other interests, and the way they compete for access to decision-makers.[24]
Some coalitions are long-standing, while others are temporary. Joining coalitions does come with a cost, because it can dilute preferences and split potential benefits that the groups attempt to accrue. Some interest groups will even align themselves with opposing interests if the alliance will achieve their goals. For example, left-leaning groups might oppose a state lottery organisation because it disproportionately hurts the poor (who participate in this form of gambling at higher rates), while right-leaning groups might oppose information technology because they view gambling every bit a sinful activity. These opposing groups might actually join forces in an effort to defeat the lottery.
While most scholars agree that some interests do have advantages, others have questioned the overwhelming dominance of certain interests. Additionally, neopluralist scholars argue that certainly some interests are in a privileged position, but these interests do non always get what they want.[25]
Instead, their influence depends on a number of factors in the political environment such as public opinion, political culture, competition for access, and the relevance of the issue. Even wealthy interests practice not always win if their position is at odds with the wish of an attentive public. And if the public cares near the issue, politicians may be reluctant to defy their constituents. If a prominent manufacturing firm wants fewer regulations on environmental pollutants, and ecology protection is a salient issue to the public, the manufacturing firm may not win in every substitution, despite its resource reward. We likewise know that when interests mobilize, opposing interests frequently counter-mobilize, which can reduce advantages of some interests. Thus, the conclusion that businesses, the wealthy, and elites win in every situation is overstated.[26]
A good example is the contempo dispute between fast nutrient chains and their employees. During the spring of 2015, workers at McDonald'southward restaurants across the country went on strike and marched in protest of the low wages the fast food giant paid its employees. Despite the opposition of restaurant chains and claims by the National Restaurant Association that increasing the minimum wage would result in the loss of jobs, in September 2015, the state of New York raised the minimum wage for fast food employees to $xv per hr, an amount to be phased in over time. Buoyed by this success, fast food workers in other cities connected to entrada for a pay increase, and many depression-paid workers have promised to vote for politicians who plan to boost the federal minimum wage.[27]
Visit the websites for the California or Michigan secretary of country, state boards of elections, or relevant governmental entity and ideals websites where lobbyists and interest groups must annals. Several examples are provided but feel costless to examine the comparable spider web page in your own state. Spend some time looking over the lists of involvement groups registered in these states. Practice the registered interests appear to reflect the important interests inside u.s.a.? Are at that place patterns in the types of interests registered? Are certain interests over- or underrepresented?
Summary
Interest groups afford people the opportunity to become more civically engaged. Socioeconomic status is an important predictor of who will likely join groups. The number and types of groups actively lobbying to get what they want from regime have been increasing rapidly. Many business and public interest groups accept arisen, and many new interests have adult due to technological advances, increased specialization of industry, and fragmentation of interests. Lobbying has besides become more sophisticated in recent years, and many interests now hire lobbying firms to represent them.
Some scholars assume that groups will compete for admission to decision-makers and that most groups have the potential to exist heard. Critics advise that some groups are advantaged by their admission to economic resource. Yet others admit these resource advantages simply suggest that the political environment is equally important in determining who gets heard.
Practice Questions
- What does group participation provide to citizens?
- Why don't lower-income groups participate more in the interest group organization?
- What are some barriers to participation?
Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-monroecc-americangovernment/chapter/interest-groups-as-political-participation/
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