Interest Groups Discussion Questions
Directions: In your groups discuss each question (or more accurately, series of questions). Try to answer each one in depth using the text and your own experience as source material. At the end of the small group discussions we will discuss each question as an entire class. Accordingly, each group member should be prepared to share the important and interesting points raised in your group.
1. Why have interest groups grown stronger as parties have grown weaker? Could this inverse relationship be changed with both interest groups and parties growing more powerful? Or are there incentives for these organizations to compete? Could interest groups and parties grow progressively weaker?
2. Which have been more important in the formation of interest groups: changes in the economic structure of society or changes in ideas and beliefs? What evidence does the text give us? What examples can you think of?
3. The text contends the governmental policy encourages the growth and activity of interest groups; programs create constituencies. What about the reverse – do interest groups create government programs? Could interest group activity be responsible for the expansion of government itself? In The End of Liberalism Theodore Lowi presented the theory that public policy is formulated by governmental bureaucrats in conjunction with interest groups. Has the complexity of contemporary society shifted the advantage to interest groups?
Interest Groups Discussion Questions
Directions: In your groups discuss each question (or more accurately, series of questions). Try to answer each one in depth using the text and your own experience as source material. At the end of the small group discussions we will discuss each question as an entire class. Accordingly, each group member should be prepared to share the important and interesting points raised in your group.
1. Why have interest groups grown stronger as parties have grown weaker? Could this inverse relationship be changed with both interest groups and parties growing more powerful? Or are there incentives for these organizations to compete? Could interest groups and parties grow progressively weaker?
2. Which have been more important in the formation of interest groups: changes in the economic structure of society or changes in ideas and beliefs? What evidence does the text give us? What examples can you think of?
3. The text contends the governmental policy encourages the growth and activity of interest groups; programs create constituencies. What about the reverse – do interest groups create government programs? Could interest group activity be responsible for the expansion of government itself? In The End of Liberalism Theodore Lowi presented the theory that public policy is formulated by governmental bureaucrats in conjunction with interest groups. Has the complexity of contemporary society shifted the advantage to interest groups?