Pressure Groups

A reminder about behaviour versus the state

Talk a bit about pressure groups - reflective of diversity within society which is why you will find a lot of textbooks talking about the link between a wide range of pressure groups, articulating concerns at a societal level.

Strong civil society

For some theorists the existence of pressure groups is essential to a proper functioning democracy.

Freedom of association

Freedom of speech

“The Stuff of democracy” S. Finer

For others it is corrosive and eats away at the fabric of democracy represented by the sovereignty of an elected assembly - in our case the House of Commons.

In this type of view sectoral interests (explain sectoral) e.g. the trade unions and/or big business or any other group with economic advantages will seek to place their own narrow interests above those of the common good and ultimately subvert democracy.

Number of ways we can talk about groups

Define a range of different groups

  • Public Interests groups and voluntary associations
  • Pressure groups and social movements
  • Seeking to bring about change through political activity

What then distinguishes groups from parties?

  • Parties want to become government (green peace want to influence govt policy)
  • Parties have broad policy interests (the BMA are concerned with only health policy, some exist only to fight a single issue (e.g. the anti poll tax federation)
  • Parties are primarily political (The ramblers association say only become involved in politics when their interests are threatened)
  • Parties fight elections (The BMA is powerful but does not fight elections)

Sometimes the distinction is blurred

  • Some groups do have a wide variety of policy concerns e.g. green peace - if you want to save the environment you have to change everything!
  • Some groups e.g. CBI and TUC support parties and their members finance them quite considerably.
  • New Social Movements emerged in the 1970s to articulate and politicise a whole new range of issues
  • CND
  • The environment
  • Women’s movement
  • Minority groups
  • Gay and Lesbian Organisations

Different types of group

  • Interest groups (major sectional interests like TUs, IoD, BMA, NUS)
  • Cause groups (fighting a good cause or idea RSPB, Consumers Association etc. etc.)
  • New social movements (already explained)
  • Episodic groups (not normally political but may become so if the circumstances arise)
  • Fire brigade groups (fight a specific issue e.g. poll tax)
  • Peak Associations (e.g. the TUC, CBI national and international peak associations)
  • Insider groups (recognised by the government as those groups representing legitimate interests. NFU legally entitled to be consulted over pricing matters. Insider groups get privileged access to government but are then required to play by “the rules of the game” Outsider groups (the opposite of above)
  • Cross Bench Groups (groups that are neutral between parties - sometimes a strong link between groups and parties sometimes not)

Techniques

Approach Civil Servants

Consultation (insider Groups)

Enables technical consideration of policy matters

Avoids mistakes

Ministerial and Cabinet level links

Outsiders have to make ‘public’ rather then ‘private’ cases

Approach Westminster

Sympathetic MPs

Select Committees

Backbench Committees

Political parties

Some groups with strong links to parties like:

Tus with Labour

ERS Liberal Democrats

NFU Conservatives

Try to influence policy detail at party level

Public Campaigns

E.G. Snowdrop

Courts

Abolition of capital punishment

European Union

European law has primacy - 80% of trade goes on in the EU makes sense for groups to switch their focus to the international level especially the EU.

Policy Communities

  • Tightly organised ‘networks’
  • Resource sharing
  • Delivery of members
  • Difficult to penetrate

Theories of the Policy process

Pluralism

Elitism

Marxism

The New Right Case

Pluralism

Sees groups as integral to democracy

Diverse groups representing diverse interests within society

Competing groups in society contest all issues

Groups are not equal - often a mistake made by students is to infer that pluralists think all groups are equal - although pluralists do argue that all groups have some resources which they can bring to bear upon the process of decision making

So:

No groups are powerless

No one group is all-powerful

No fixed power structure

Power is non hierarchically organised - no structure of power

Groups do not get everything that they want - compromise

Pluralist democracy works reasonably well - not perfect but…

Elitism

The distribution of power in society reflects inequalities of wealth - some groups are wealthy some are not.

Wealthy interest groups are powerful because they have time, money, organisational cohesion, good contacts in positions of power. Poor groups who represent minority groups, the mentally ill or the homeless have little money and few resources to draw upon in order to make a difference.

Groups compete for influence within a political system and within rules of the game that are systematically loaded in favour of middle and upper class interests.

Dominant financial interests - City of London

Organisations are internally oligarchic - remember Michels ‘iron law of oligarchy’ (Cf. Lecture2 on Power)

A small national elite controls all major decisions and leaves smaller less significant issues open to democratic decision making.

The wealthy dominate the political system.

The New Right Case

Hostile to the idea that pressure groups should influence government (critical of some of the normative claims of pluralism)

Governments are elected to represent the public good, not the narrow self-interests of one or other group

Groups distort the market especially trade unions who negotiate false wage levels. If they were exposed to market competition they would get what they are worth.

By protecting their sectional interests groups slow economic growth and cause unemployment, inflation and high public expenditure.

This is because hyper pluralism (too many demands) causes government overload and an inability to govern.

New right critics point to the 1970s

Groups may be consulted but power should remain firmly in the hands of government.