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INTEREST GROUPS, LOBBYING AND LOBBYISTS ACROSS
THE WESTERN WORLD AND BEYOND
Clive S. Thomas
Foley Institute of Public Policy
Washington State University
and
PAS—Political Advocacy Strategies
INTRODUCTION
What all interest groups have in common is a desire to affect government
policy in a way that benefits them or their cause. It could be a policy that
exclusively benefits group members or one segment of society, such as establishing
the right to strike for trade unionists; or it might be a policy that achieve some
broader public purpose, like improving air quality. Successful interest groups focus
their activities on the power points in a political system. Therefore, understanding
about interest groups and their activities provides important insights into how a
political system functions and how power is distributed within it.
Interest groups are a natural outgrowth of the fact that societies break down
into "communities of interests" from the narrowest groups such as the Japan Eraser
Manufacturers Association to broader groups like farmers (for example, the
Federation of Swedish Farmers--LRP) to very broad organizations such as the
military in authoritarian countries like Burma. Thus, interest groups are a natural,
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prevalent, permanent and essential aspect of all political systems from the most
democratic to the most authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Furthermore, interest
groups exist at all levels of government—national, state, provincial and local, and
increasingly in international affairs. Politics and interests are inseparable: very few
political systems have ever existed that did not have some interest groups.
However, these common goals and sources of interest groups mask the wide
variety of their forms, the strategies and tactics they use, and differences across
political systems, including contrasts between democratic and authoritarian systems
and within each of these systems, as well as between industrialized and nonindustrialized countries. This essay explains these differences as well as the role of
interest groups in political systems in general. It focuses primarily on one of the two
branches of interest group studies: the role of interest groups in the public policy
making process. Much less attention is given to groups as organizations and their
internal dynamics. First, however, it needs to be pointed out that those who study
interest groups face two major problems in conducting research.
One problem is a lack of agreement on the use of definitions and terms. For
example, there is no agreed upon definition of an interest group among scholars.
Until recently the term pressure group was used (and still is in British
Commonwealth countries) for what is now generally termed an interest group, and
there is no agreed on classification of types of interest groups. No one can provide
water-tight distinctions and an entirely consistent use of terms. However, one can
use widely accepted definitions and terms and this is the approach in this essay.
Second, there are varying approaches to studying interest groups in different
political systems variance. There are three main reasons for this. One is that the
operation of parliamentary systems—like Britain, Sweden and Japan-with their
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strong parties and cabinet domination of policy making—made interest groups and
their activities less obvious than in the United States. As a result, the study of these
groups was neglected in parliamentary democracies for many years. Second, even
though interest groups exist in all countries, many societies do not recognize their
activities in the way that American scholars do. There is, for example, no word in
German, Swedish or Czech for lobbyist. Third, countries at different levels of
development display different forms of interest group activity and the less formal
activities in less developed political systems are often not recognized as interest
group activity in the way that scholars of more advanced countries define it. These
problems of approach will not be a major concern in this essay, but anyone pursuing
the studying of interest groups should be aware of them.
DEFINING INTEREST GROUP AND MAKING AN IMPORTANT DISTINCTION
Although there is disagreement among scholars as to the definition of interest
group, for the purposes of this essay the following definition is used:
An interest group is any association of individuals or organizations, usually
formally organized, which on the basis of one or more shared concerns attempts
to influence public policy in its favor.
This broad definition contrasts with the narrow one often used to include only those
groups that are private and that have a distinct, formal organization such as
Confindustria (the Italian General Confederation of Industry). One problem with
this narrow definition is that many formally organized entities are not private. Most
important of these is government itself and its multitude of agencies and levels.
Furthermore, in many countries the armed forces lobby for their budgets and play a
major role in shaping public policy. Overall, probably the most important lobbying
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forces in any society are the various elements of government. This is a major reason
for using a broad definition.
Another reason is that in all societies there are many informal groups that are,
in effect, interest groups but would not be covered by a narrow definition. For
example, a group of influential citizens in South Africa, concerned about the lack of
computer literacy among school children, might use social settings to lobby friends
who are government officials to deal with the problem. Another example of
informal groups are anomic groups. These are short-lived, often spontaneous
groups such as those organized to demonstrate against unpopular policies. French
farmers are renown for this by blocking the streets of Paris with tractors and
livestock to protest agricultural policies they dislike. In developing countries there
are informal groups of elites and tribal leaders and other informal social structures
that can influence public policy as much as any formal group but would not be
covered by a narrow definition of interest group. Similarly, in authoritarian
systems, including communist regimes, there are influential groups of political and
professional elites that the system does not recognize as formal groups but that are
important in informally influencing public policy.
The term interest instead of interest group is often used to denote broad or
less formalized political constituencies. For example, the business interest, the labor
interest, the agricultural interest, and so on are used to designate broad segments of
society that may include many formal interest groups. Similarly, interest is often
used when considering government entities working to influence other governments
such as the local government interest working to securing funding from national
governments. In authoritarian and developing societies, where formal interest
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groups are restricted or less developed, interest is often used to designate broader
groupings such as government elites and tribal leaders.
In defining an interest group it is important to distinguish it from a political
party and a social movement. The distinction is not entirely clear and there is
overlap. But for purposes of this essay the following differentiation can be made.
Interest groups are usually concerned with a narrow issue or range of issues and try
to promote them for their members or society as a whole. However, unlike political
parties, they do not seek to formally control the machinery of government. Social
movements try to champion grand visions of social change usually for large,
dispossessed segments of the population such as African Americans and women in
the U.S. in the 1960s and broadly defined issues throughout the world such as
environmentalism. Political parties seek to direct the energies of groups and
movements through the electoral process to win control of government in order to
implement a broad-based political platform which includes policies on a gamut of
issues from health to education to transportation to foreign policy.
TYPES OF INTEREST GROUPS AND INTERESTS
Most classifications of types of interest groups reflect the situation in
advanced pluralist democracies. Even in these systems, however, there is no single
accepted way to classify the wide range of interest groups and interests. The
following five-part classification uses standard terminology and embraces the major
groups and interests in all types of political systems.
Economic Interests or Producer Groups. These exist in every society,
democratic and authoritarian, developed and underdeveloped. There are literally
thousands of them with offices in national capitals from London to Ottawa to New
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Delhi to Canberra. These groups can further be divided into business, labor,
agricultural and professional groups. Examples include: for business, the Canadian
Federation of Independent Business and the Nestles Corporation in Switzerland and
its activities in numerous countries; for labor, the Metal Workers Union, Germany’s
largest trade union; for agriculture, the Irish Farmers’ Association in the Republic of
Ireland; and for professional groups, the Czech Chamber of Doctors. Some
economic groups, as often is the case with other types of groups, are made up of
individual members as with trade unions or farmer commodity organizations like
ranchers or fruit growers. In other instances group members are not individuals but
organizations or businesses such as with the Trade Union Congress in Britain, an
association of trade unions that has no individuals as members or the Keidanren
(Japan Federation of Economic Organizations), the major Japanese business
association. These types of organizations are often called peak associations as they
are, in effect, the major organizations in their area of interest in a country. As we
will see below, peak associations are important in countries that use a neocorporatist system of policy making.
Special Interest Cause Groups. These are groups that represent a segment of
society but whose primary purpose is non-economic and usually attempt to promote
a cause or cherished value. This category is wide-ranging, from churches and
religious organizations, like Catholic Action in Italy, to ex-servicepersons (veterans)
groups (such as the French Union of Veteran’s and Victim’s Groups—UFAC),
groups supporting or opposing issues like gay rights, the rights of the handicapped
(for example, the National Organization of the Spanish Blind), and pro and antifeminist groups (for example, Women Who Want to be Women, an Australian group
opposed to many of the positions of the women’s rights movement in that country).
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In recent years the term single issue group has increasingly been applied to cause
groups that focus on one narrow issue such as pro-life and right-to-life groups.
Public Interest Groups. There is often a fine line and overlap between many
cause and public interest groups. Whereas economic interests and most cause
groups tend to benefit a narrow constituency, public interest groups promote issues
of general public concern such as protecting the environment or promoting human
rights. Many public interest groups operate in one country only such as the Federal
Association of Citizen-Action Groups for Environmental Protection (BBU) in
Germany. Increasingly, however, many public interest groups have an international
presence such as the environmental group Greenpeace and the human rights group
Amnesty International, which monitors activities and publishes reports on the
criminal justice systems of individual countries, including the way that they treat
their prisoners.
Private and Public Institutional Interests—Particularly Government. Private
institutional interests include think tanks like the Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C., the numerous private universities in the U.S. and various forms
of news media, particularly newspapers, that take up causes from time to time. But
by far the largest component of this category is government in its many forms. At
the national level an example is the British Department of the Environment; at the
provincial level in Canada the University of Alberta, a public university, lobbying
the provincial government for its budget; at the local level the School Board in
Fairbanks, Alaska lobbying the Borough Assembly for money for a new high school
gymnasium; and at the international level, the United Nations lobbying the U.S.
Congress and the president to pay its outstanding contributions to that organization.
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Governmental institutional interests are often the most important interests in
authoritarian regimes where private interest groups are restricted or banned. The
military, particularly the senior officer corps, has usually been the dominant force in
Latin American dictatorships, as was the case in Chile, Argentina and Paraguay. In
past and present communist societies government entities like economic planning
and agricultural agencies and the secret police, particularly if they are included in
the top policy making body, such at the Politburo in the old Soviet Union, are the
major interests. And in some authoritarian regimes, such as Iran under the
Ayatullah Khumayni and today in Saudi Arabia and many Muslim nations,
religious institutions are prominent interests.
Non-associational Groups—Interests. Besides French farmers other examples
of anomic groups are the 1994 up-rising of the mainly indigenous poor of the
Mexican state of Chiapas in protest against social, economic and political injustice
and the violence in Seattle in November 2000 when protesters vented their
opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO) policies during a meeting of the
organization in that city. Other examples of informal groups and interests include:
an ad hoc group of influential Turkish business leaders traveling to Brussels to
promote Turkey’s entry into the European Union; liberal Catholic bishops in many
Latin American countries working to promote human rights in their respective
countries; a group of Ebo tribal leaders from eastern Nigeria going to Lagos, the
national capital, to represent their region of Biafra to government officials; the
network of merchants and small businessmen in the Tehran bazaar that coalesced
during the 1970s against the economic reforms of the Shah of Iran; and large
landowners in India working through the personal ties they have on local
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assemblies and in state and national political party organizations to protect against
major land reforms.
Political systems at different levels of development and different types of
regimes manifest different combinations and varying ranges of these five types of
interest groups. So-called advanced or “post-industrial” democracies—those of
Western Europe, Japan, the United States and Canada, for example—have all five
types in large numbers, in a wide variety and with an increasing number of public
interest and cause groups. Less developed countries, like those of most of Africa,
and those with authoritarian regimes, like Cuba and Iraq, have a narrower range of
economic groups, with very few—if any—public interest and cause groups, some
government interests. In these regimes informal interests are generally the most
important and most numerous.
COMMON CHARACTERISTICS OF INTEREST GROUPS AND THEIR
IMPORTANCE TO POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Unlike political parties, which originate and exist primarily for political
purposes, most interest groups are not primarily political organizations. They develop
from a common economic or social interest, as, for example, computer software
companies forming a business trade association, gays forming a self-help association, or
model railroad enthusiasts forming a club. Such organizations promote programs and
disseminate information to enhance the professional, business, social, or avocational
interests of their members. Much of this activity is nonpolitical, as when the American
Medical Association publishes its journal or provides cut-rate life insurance for its
members.
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However, many nonpolitical interest groups are forced to become politically
active because there is no other way to protect or promote the interests of their
members. Workers’ movements in Western Europe did so in the late nineteenth
century to establish the legality of trade unions and to promote child labor and worker
safety laws. Employers’ organizations became politically active to counter both union
power and to resist government regulation. Farm groups used the political process to
secure and preserve import tariffs and farm subsidies. Increased government
involvement in the economy and in society in the western world since the 1930s has
brought a plethora of new groups into the political arena to protect themselves from
government regulation, to secure a piece of the government budget, or to promote some
value or belief. Actions of authoritarian regimes can also galvanize previously nonpolitical groups into political action. This was the case in the 1970s when young
workers in South Korea organized against the economic reforms of the Park Chung Hee
regime. Scholars once made a distinction between non-political and political groups by
designating the former as interest groups and the latter as pressure groups. Modern
usage, however, includes both types under the term interest group.
Therefore, while most interest groups have many nonpolitical goals, they have
one overriding goal when they become involved in politics—to influence the political
process and particularly public policy in their favor. In addition to promoting the
political interests of their members, interest groups perform several important functions
for political systems in general, though the importance of any particular function will
vary according to the type of political system and from country to country with the
same system.
The Aggregation and Representation of Interests. Together with political parties,
interest groups are a major means by which people with similar interests and concerns
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are brought together, or aggregated, and their views articulated to government. Thus,
interest groups are an important vehicle of political participation. This is especially the
case in liberal democracies where large segments of the population are members of
various types of formally and informally organized interest groups and interests.
Facilitating Government. Groups contribute to the substance of public policy by
being significant sources of both technical and political information for policy makers.
This is because interest groups and their leaders are often the most knowledgeable
sources of information on their topic of concern. Ideas put forward by interest groups
are often the source of legislation. Furthermore, interest groups help to facilitate the
process of bargaining and compromise essential to policy making in pluralist systems.
They often perform this role in authoritarian regimes as well, if in a less officially
recognized, more informal way. And groups sometimes aid in implementing public
policies, as for example, when the Iowa Farm Bureau distributes information about a
state or federal agricultural program.
Political Education and Training. To varying degrees, interest groups educate
their members and the public on issues. They also provide opportunities for citizens in
democratic countries to learn about the political process and to gain valuable practical
experience for seeking public office. In authoritarian regimes they also provide a
training ground for party operatives and others with political ambitions. A good
example of a group providing both functions in developing and sometimes
authoritarian regimes are university student groups. Being among the best educated
and among the few organized groups in authoritarian and developing societies,
students are in a position to inform the public on issues and gain valuable experience
for holding political office.
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Candidate and Public Official Recruitment. In democracies groups often recruit
candidates to run for public office, both from within and outside their group. In
authoritarian regimes groups can be an important source for future leaders, like the
Communist youth organizations in many countries.
Sources of Campaign Finance and Sources of Political Party Electoral Support.
Increasingly these days in democracies, particularly the United States and Britain,
groups help to finance political campaigns, both candidate elections and ballot measure
elections (initiative, referendum, and recall). In the United States, the period since the
1970s has seen the rise of political action committees (PACs), organizations set up by
interest groups primarily to channel money to candidates for public office. Interest
groups are also important sources of campaign workers, such as union members
helping to get the Social Democrats elected in Sweden. This funding and campaign
support function is not confined to democracies, however. Mass parties in
authoritarian regimes often rely on interest groups for support. This was the case, for
example, in Argentina where Juan Perón used the General Confederation of Labor
(CGT), the trade union peak association, to gain and maintain the presidency of that
country from 1946 to 1955.
FACTORS SHAPING INTEREST GROUP SYSTEMS AND THEIR
OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
Interest groups do not develop or operate in a vacuum. An interest group
system’s development and the way that interest groups in that system go about
influencing public policy are shaped by historical, cultural social, economic,
political, governmental and other factors. This section explains five major factors
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shaping the interest group operating environment as a foundation for
understanding similarities and differences in specific types of group systems.
The Level of Socio-economic Development. As noted above, the more
economically advanced the society, particularly if the society is a liberal democracy,
the more formalized and extensive the number of interest groups and the more
people belonging to them. The development of a middle class is particularly
important as a basis for the development of many professional and cause groups,
especially in post-industrial societies. In less developed, particularly authoritarian,
third world countries with rural economies and low levels of education, the range of
interest is much narrower and the forms of representation are largely informal, with
a very small segment of society gaining access to government. Another factor is the
extent of membership in trade unions and the degree to which the business
community is united through peak associations. The significance of broad
membership and peak associations will be seen when the concept of neocorporatism is explained in the next section.
Extent of the Legality and Acceptance of Interest Group Activity. In
advanced liberal democracies there is a general right to form groups whereas
authoritarian regimes usually place major restrictions on and may even ban group
formation and lobbying. Furthermore, in many societies interest groups are viewed
as detrimental to the functioning of society. Consequently they are seen as
illegitimate, as they place special or sectoral interests above those of the nation as a
whole. This view is not only expressed in the official ideology of communist
countries; it is unofficially recognized in many authoritarian and developing
countries as expressed in the attitudes of elites as in Bangladesh and Taiwan. Even
in transitional regimes, where the development of formal interest group activity is
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an essential element, interest groups can be viewed as antithetical to the success of
the society. In the Czech Republic, for example, there is a skepticism of interest
groups both among the public, a hang-over of the fear of belonging to banned
groups in the old regime, and among some politicians who see groups as impeding
the transition to democracy by promoting their special interests. In contrast, even
though interest groups are viewed with skepticism and distrust in many developed
pluralist societies, such as in the United States, they are still seen as necessary to the
functioning of the political system.
The Political Culture. These values and beliefs about politics—what
government should and should not do, what are and are not legitimate ways for
political leaders to act, and so on—vary from country to country and help shape the
role of interest groups. The level of acceptance of interest groups just examined is
one manifestation of how political culture can affect the group operating
environment; but there are several others. Political cultural differences have also led
some countries to regulate interest group activity extensively, as in the United
States, while in others it is much less stringently regulated as in Britain and
Germany. Of particular importance is the extent of political ideology. In both
democracies and authoritarian regimes, deep-rooted ideology can lead to certain
patterns of interest group involvement or exclusion from the policy process, which
is not the case in less ideological political cultures. In Sweden, for example, the
social democratic belief of including all interests in the policy making process, leads
to the government organizing and funding groups, such as immigrant workers, that
might not form otherwise. In contrast, in communist regimes the ideology does not
officially recognize interest groups and so they have to operate unofficially.
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The General Decision Making Process of a Political System—Where is
Political Power Located? The location of power will determine the access points
and methods of influence used by interest groups as they will not waste time
dealing with parts of the political system that will not advance their causes. The
power structure will also be shaped by whether the system is unitary or federal. In
federal systems, like the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany, many
groups mount campaigns at both the national and state or provincial levels. The
importance of the decision making process in a system will become clearer below in
the consideration of group strategies and tactics.
Short-term Factors—the Political Party/Government in Power. The structure
of government or constitutional system just identified will determine the general
patterns of interest groups activity particularly their strategies and tactics over the
long-run. In the short-term, however, group activity and particularly the success of
certain groups will be influenced by the political party or government in power.
This is particularly the case in parliamentary democracies where control of
government by left-wing or liberal parties, such as Norwegian Labor Party, give
more influence to labor groups and liberal causes such as environmentalists. In
contrast, control by conservative parties, such as Christian Democrats in Germany,
tends to favor business and conservative causes such as anti-tax and anti-gay rights
groups. Even in authoritarian regimes, changes in the executive or the complexion
of the legislature can bring about different patterns of influence and increase the
success of some groups at the expense of others.
Differences in these five factors produce different types of interest group
systems with different operating environments. The following two sections explain
how variations in these factors can produce: (1) different general patterns of how
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groups interact with the policy system: and (2) specific differences in group
strategies and tactics.
THE ROLE OF INTEREST GROUPS IN PUBLIC POLICY MAKING: THE PLURALIST
AND THE NEO-CORPORATIST PERSPECTIVES
Scholars have developed two major theoretical explanations of how interest
groups in liberal democracies relate to the public policy making process. These are
the pluralist model and its modifications, and the neo-corporatist or corporatist
model.
Pluralism. Pluralists argue that the most realistic description of politics and
the policy process in a democracy is a market-place where there is more or less
perfect competition. In theory, in this political market-place, many (or plural)
perspectives, as represented by individuals, political parties and interest groups and
interests, compete to get their views before government and their policies enacted
and implemented. In this process the government is theoretically neutral and
disengaged from interest group conflicts, thus creating a policy process and interest
group system where all are free to organize for political purposes, where there is
equal access to policy makers, and where there are no overwhelmingly powerful
political forces that can monopolize or dominate the policy making process to their
advantage.
All western democracies exhibit some degree of pluralism, but the United
States is perhaps closest to this pure pluralist model than any other society. Hence,
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it is in the U.S. that pluralism has found its greatest champions. However, much
criticism has been leveled at pluralism over the years. The two major criticisms of it
as a description of western interest group systems are:
(1) that uneven distribution of economic resources, varying levels of education and
perceptions of political efficacy, and political and governmental constraints, among
other factors, means that in reality political access and political power are unevenly
distributed in all democracies and this affects access and influence of interest groups
and interests; and (2) that the government is not neutral in the conflict resolution
process. Evidence suggests that government favors some
groups over others, and that it is invariably involved in the conflict resolution
process, often to promote its own interests. These criticisms have led pluralists to
offer variations on the pure pluralist model to more accurately reflect the reality.
These include the elitist perspective, where certain well-placed and well-financed
groups and individuals are seen as the prime movers in policy making.
Neo-corporatism and Corporatism. Whereas the pluralist policy
environment is free flowing, neo-corporatism is a structured, cooperative
relationship between government and certain interest groups, the goal being to
provide stability and predictability in the development and implementation of
certain policies, most often economic policies. Because of its focus on economic
policies, those interests usually participating in neo-corporatist arrangements are
producer groups, particularly business and labor. As three sectors of society—
government, business and labor—are generally involved, the negotiations are often
referred to as tripartite negotiations and the outcomes as tripartite agreements. And
this institutionalized and authoritative process of negotiations is referred to as
intermediation and sometimes as concertation.
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Neo-corporatism as a theory of interest groups in liberal democracies
originated in the 1970s and is much younger than pluralism. However, corporatism
has a long history, particularly associated with conservative nationalist and
authoritarian regimes, such as Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain and Austria in the
1930s. Similar to neo-corporatism, corporatism uses employer organizations and
trade unions as agents of state economic and social regulation. The major difference
between corporatism (sometimes called state corporatism) and neo-corporatism
(sometimes termed societal corporatism) is that in the former tripartite agreements
are imposed by the state but in the latter, in liberal democracies, they arise from
societal pressures, and participation and compliance is voluntary.
Certain conditions must exist regarding the political representation of
business and labor for neo-corporatist arrangements to operate. Foremost among
these are the extent of membership in these groups and the existence of one or two
peak associations representing business and labor. In Sweden and Germany, for
example, union membership is in excess of fifty percent of the work force and there
are one or two peak associations representing business and labor to which most
unions and businesses belong. Such a monopoly on representation by these peak
associations make their agreements with government binding on their members
and, because their members comprise a large and politically powerful segment of
society, on society as a whole. Thus, in Germany and Sweden, as well as the rest of
Scandinavia, and in Austria and Switzerland, among other countries, neocorporatist arrangements are possible and best describe interest group activity in the
policy making process for much of the period since World War II. In contrast, the
low level of unionization in the United States, never more than thirty percent of the
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work force and less than fifteen percent in 2000, and the lack of any real peak
association in business, mean that neo-corporatist arrangements are not possible.
Like pluralism, neo-corporatism has been subject to numerous criticisms, as
an expert on neo-corporatism, Peter Williamson, has noted. One criticism is that it
does not represent a complete alternative to pluralism. In fact, it can be argued that
neo-corporatism is just one form of pluralism. Even in the most neo-corporatist
countries, policy making is never solely corporatist, but contains some elements of
pluralism. There are also major variances among western democracies in their
ability to achieve neo-corporatist arrangements. The lack of conditions in the U.S.
was mentioned above. Japan has a form of neo-corporatism, but without involving
labor organizations, and neo-corporatism has had little success in Britain. Neocorporatism, then, appears to be linked to specific socio-economic, political or
cultural phenomena, and is not a universal development of interest group activity in
liberal democracies.
Although they are the major models of interest group activity in liberal
democracies, pluralism and neo-corporatism are not the only explanations. Another
is the strong political party model which sees strong, disciplined parties that
dominate the policy process as the major determinants of interest group activity—
interest groups being dependent on the party in power for access and ultimately
influence. Another, though less commonly accepted explanation, is the neo-Marxist
model, which offers a major critique of both pluralism and neo-corporatism. NeoMarxism holds that interest group influence is less the product of politics or societal
agreements than it is of class consciousness. This is particularly true, neo-Marxists
hold, in explaining the influence of business and the capitalist class. In practice,
explanations of the role of interest groups in public policy making in liberal
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democracies is probably best described as a combination of two or more of the above
four explanations, depending on the country concerned.
The explanation of interest group activity in policy making in authoritarian
and non-pluralist regimes is far less easily categorized. In old-style communist
regimes, like those of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the so-called
“transmission belt” system operated. Here the various communist party
organizations were ciphers and agents of the party elite, transmitting to and
enforcing upon their members policies and other actions desired by the party. In
other systems a version of the strong party may determine interest group activity, as
was the case for many years with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in
Mexico. In yet other societies, like Egypt and several in Latin America, a form of
corporatism operates, though again, often in combination with limited elements of
pluralism.
INTEREST GROUP STRATEGIES AND TACTICS :
EXPLAINING SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
To achieve its political goals interests and interest groups engages in
lobbying. This can be defined as the interaction of an individual, interest group or
interest with policy makers, either directly or indirectly, with a view to influencing
current policy or creating a relationship conducive to shaping future policy to the
benefit of that individual, group or interest. Lobbying involves developing a
strategy or plan of action, and executes it through specific tactics. Group strategy
and tactics involve a three-stage process: (1) gaining access to government decisionmakers; (2) building up relationships with them; and (3) influencing their actions in
making public policy. This three-stage process is common to all interest groups and
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to all political systems. However, the particular strategies developed and the
specific tactics used vary widely both among and within political systems.
The previous two sections provide insights into the reasons why strategies
and tactics vary between systems. Three factors are of particular importance. The
first is whether the system is democratic or authoritarian. Because there are
relatively few restrictions on interest groups in democratic societies, they have many
more strategies and tactics available—such as hiring lobbyists, using the press and
staging public demonstrations. These tend to be more formalized and open than in
authoritarian societies where strategies and tactics are more ad hoc and less publicly
visible. The second is the structure of the policy process in regard to key decisionmaking. In authoritarian regimes this usually means that groups, formal or
informal, have to get the ear of the dictator or the dictator’s close associates. In the
old communist countries it required gaining access to the party elite. The power
structure is broader in democracies, but varies according to how the system is
structured. The vast majority of democracies are parliamentary, organized on the
basis of strong, ideological political parties where power is held by a prime minister
and cabinet and sometimes a bureaucracy, as in Britain, France and Japan, with the
parliament being of little importance in final decision-making. The courts in
parliamentary systems also play a very minor role in policy making. In contrast, the
U.S. political system divides power among the three branches of government and so,
in most cases, interest groups must employ a much broader strategy. The third
factor is political culture as it relates to group activity and lobbying. For instance, in
the U.S. the use of contract lobbyists, those hired on a contract specifically to lobby is
much more accepted than in most other western democracies, including the
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European Union, where public officials much prefer to deal directly with the
members of the group, organization or business concerned.
Three major factors can also be identified as to why strategies and tactics vary
within a political system. One is the nature of the group or interest and its
resources. Those, like business, labor and professional groups, with major
resources—including money and contacts with public officials—often termed
“insider groups”—are more able to pursue “insider tactics,” using close friends and
associates in government to promote their goals, and generally have many more
options available to them than do “outsider groups.” A second is the nature of the
issue. Going about killing a legislative or regulatory proposal requires a different
approach than promoting one. Also, a group of citizens in Los Angeles working to
get a stop light on a dangerous intersection would likely use local people to lobby
the city government rather than employ a narrow strategy using a hired lobbyist.
This is in part because this type of group has limited resources, but mainly because
the use of a hired lobbyist on such an extremely local issue would be viewed as
inappropriate by public officials and would be counter productive. And third is the
political climate in regard to the party or group in power, the major issues currently
before government and the fiscal situation. For instance, the National Education
Association (NEA) in the U.S. (the major school teacher union), pursues a different
strategy when the Republicans are in power in Washington, D.C. and in the states
than when the Democrats are in power. NEA has “insider status” with the
Democrats but generally not with the Republicans.
Although, overall, strategies and tactics vary between and within political
systems, there are some tactics, some basics of lobbying, that are common in all
systems. The major common denominator is personal contact between group
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representatives and public officials, whether the system is democratic or
authoritarian. Therefore, building up good relations with government officials—
trust and credibility—and working to create a need for the group by government are
key in all lobbying. In democratic systems, while the tactics are usually more broadranging, all are ultimately geared to enhancing personal contact between group
representatives and government officials for the simple purpose of influencing
government policy in the group’s favor.
In authoritarian and developing systems, such personal contacts between
political elites in and out of government may be the major, perhaps the only, form of
tactics. In the traditional monarchy of Saudi Arabia, petitioning the king is still a
major way of obtaining government action. Patronage networks of prominent
families and friends with government officials are also important as in countries like
Zambia and Sri Lanka. Most dictators, like Stalin, Franco and Idi Amin in Uganda
in the 1970s, had their patron-client networks where they aided close friends or
people important to their survival in exchange for favors to their clients. These
patron-client networks, which are modern manifestations of court cliques in
traditional monarchies, are based not on a shared interest (as set out in the definition
of an interest group above) but on the personal benefit of the patron and clients.
However, patron-client connections can work to represent a group, such as
merchants or landowners, to gain benefits for a group.
Beyond this basic tactic of personal contacts, the variety of available tactics
and the extensiveness of their use is a function of the level of development of the
interest group system, and again the structure of government and attitudes toward
interest group activity in a country. In liberal democracies, the U.S. is probably the
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system where interest group activity is most accepted and that displays the widest
range of tactics.
The lobbying profession in the U.S., both at the federal, state and increasingly
at the local government level, is the most advanced of any country. Lobbyists are of
various types including contract lobbyists; in-house lobbyists, who are full time
employees of a group, organization or business and work only for that entity; and
those who represent government to other governments and who are often
euphemistically called legislative liaisons or have some other title. Direct lobbying
by lobbyists may involve contacting members of Congress or state legislatures and
giving testimony before legislative committees; contacting members of the
bureaucracy or the president’s or governor’s staff. Sometimes lobbyists will
orchestrate group members to lobby public officials in person or mount letter
writing, e-mail or phone-in campaigns, an activity known as grassroots lobbying.
Because of the role of the courts in the U.S. in policy making—such as on abortion
rights—groups sometimes use the courts to achieve their goals including blocking
the implementation of policies. Indirect tactics in the U.S. include: using the media
to promote a cause through advertisements or editorials; working to get sympathetic
candidates elected or unsympathetic ones defeated; and demonstrations and sit-ins
often used by outsider groups, as with the civil rights movement in the 1960s. An
increasingly important tactic, the extent of which distinguishes American lobby
tactics from that of all other countries, is the use of campaign contributions by
groups to candidates at all levels, often made through PACs.
Some of these tactics are being adopted in other democracies and in
transitional systems as ideology and the centralization of the policy process are
being eroded. These tactics include: the use of hired lobbyists as in Britain, Canada,
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Australia and the European Union (though they are usually known by other
designations such as political consultants or government affairs/public affairs
representatives), enhanced planning, using the media and making campaign
contributions. However, while a homogenization of lobbying tactics is taking place
across the western world, governmental and power structures and political culture
are likely to perpetuate some variations. For example, the power structure of
parliamentary systems means that grass-roots campaigns are less likely to take hold
than in the U.S.
INTEREST GROUP POWER
Although the public and the press often hold a simplistic view of interest
group power—such as the richest groups are the most influential or the “good ol’
boys” always win—assessing group power is one of the most difficult and elusive
aspects of interest group studies. The difficulty is due, in part, to the fact that there
are so many factors involved in determining group power, many of which change as
political circumstances change. Moreover, there are various ways in which group
power can be defined. One way to view it is the ability of a group to achieve its
goals as that group and its leaders define them. Alternatively, group power can be
seen in terms of the most powerful groups in a society. These first two perspectives
are not the same. Some groups may be very successful in their own terms, such as
an association of truckers preventing the reduction in weight limits of trucks on
highways, but that group may never be seen as powerful in the political system
overall. Consequently, a group that is seen as influential in the society overall, such
as the trade union peak associations in many countries, often loses political battles.
Yet another way to view group power, one that throws light on the main elements of
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a political system that shape policy, is the overall influence of interest groups in that
system in relation to political parties or other institutions.
Despite these difficulties, research conducted on what determines the power
of individual interest groups is enlightening in explaining why some groups are
more powerful than others. Although this research has focused on U.S. interest
groups it has general relevance for all political systems. Twelve factors appear to be
important in determining the power (or lack thereof) of an individual interest group.
1. The degree of necessity of the group to government and public officials.
The more public officials need a group, business or organization, such as a major
industry like coal in West Virginia or big contributors to get elected, the greater the
leverage the group will have over government. Another way too look at this is that
these groups have sanctions that they can use against government and its elected
and appointed officials and this gives them political clout. In neo-corporatist
systems the favored status of business and labor gives them special advantage. In
contrast, government is far less beholden to interests such as those representing the
arts and the poor, which have few, if any, effective sanctions to use. Consequently,
such groups are usually less powerful. Even in authoritarian regimes, those
interests upon which the dictator or ruling party are dependent for functioning and
survival are likely to be the most influential.
2. Lobbyist/group representative-policy maker relations. This is significant
because it is the point at which the demands of the group are made to government.
The more skillful the lobbyist the more successful the group is likely to be. In
democratic and authoritarian systems alike, it is this personal contact and building
of trust and credibility that is often the key to lobbying success.
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These first two factors in combination are the major keys to the success of a
group or interest. Consequently, one way to look at the major task of an interest
group is for it to create a situation—partly through skillful lobbyists—where
government needs or relies on the group. The next nine factors can be seen as
elements used to promote this dependence through skill of representation.
3. Legitimacy of the group—how it is perceived by the public and public
officials. A group must be viewed as legitimate, but there are degrees of legitimacy
and the acceptance of groups. In most liberal democracies groups advocating
violence are seen as illegitimate. Others, like doctor associations and groups
advocating against drunk drivers, are given high levels of legitimacy. Others still,
like labor unions are viewed as legitimate, but their demands may be viewed less
favorably. This factor of perception is very much interrelated with the next factor.
4. The extent and strength of group opposition. Obviously, the greater the
opposition to a group or its cause the more difficult it will be to achieve its goals.
Some groups are natural political enemies, such as environmentalists and
developers, and in many cases business and labor. Other interests such as dentists
and those advocating for stricter laws against domestic violence and child abuse
have little opposition.
5. Group financial resources. While money by itself does not translate into
political power, it is the most liquid of all resources and can be used to hire staff and
lobbyists, make campaign contributions and mount media and grass-roots
campaigns.
6. Political, organizational and managerial skill of group leaders. Lobbying
campaigns in any society require organization and knowledge of the political
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process, particularly its power points. Having group leaders with these skills is an
essential element of success.
7. Size and geographical distribution of group membership. At least in
democratic societies, the larger and more geographically spread is the membership
of an organization, the more pressure it can bring to bear on more public officials.
8. Potential for the group to enter into coalitions with other groups. When a
group is able to join forces with another group or groups, it can potentially increase
one or more of the previous seven factors contributing to power just listed.
9. Political cohesiveness of the membership. The more united the group the
more likely it is to have its issue dealt with. Public officials are unlikely to take
action if they think a group is divided.
10. Timing and the political climate. There are times when it is politically
propitious to act on an issue and times when it is not. Making judgments on this is
part of the skill of lobbyists and groups leaders. For example, it would not be
politically wise to propose major increases in funding for a program in times of
declining government revenues.
11. Whether the group's lobbying focus is primarily defensive or
promotional. As the status quo and inertia are major forces in politics in all
societies, it is often easier to stop something from being enacted than it is to promote
a policy. Thus, groups that want to prevent things from happening have the
“advantage of the defense.” This is particularly the case in the U.S. where the policy
process is fragmented and groups have many chances to defeat proposals. The
“advantage of the defense” is one reason why business groups, which generally
oppose taxes and regulation, have been successful as lobbies in U.S. politics.
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12. Extent of Group Autonomy. Finally, the less a group is in charge of its
own affairs, particularly its strategy and tactics, the more its power is likely to be
undermined. Lack of group autonomy is most common in authoritarian regimes
where a group, such as business and labor under a system of state corporatism, is
co-opted and has little independent power. Lack of autonomy is also the case with
women’s and other groups that are sections within communist parties: they simply
transmit the party line determined by the partly elite. But the power of a group
being subsumed under a larger organization also occurs in liberal democracies, as is
the case with the various organizations associated with the Catholic Church, such as
Catholic Action, in Italy. But close association with an organization does not always
limit a group’s influence and may actually enhance it, depending mainly on how
much the larger organization needs its affiliate. For instance, in the socialist parties
of Western Europe trade union members were (and to some extent still are) a major
source of party members, party funds and party workers as well as party candidates
and members of local and national government bodies. Union members also had a
large voting bloc within party policy making bodies. Thus, some individual trade
unions and trade union peak associations have wielded great influence within
socialist parties, particularly in Sweden, Britain and Germany.
INTEREST GROUPS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS
So far this essay has focused on interest groups within individual countries
and types of political systems. However, a significant development in interest
group activity since World War II, and particularly since the late 1960s, has been the
increase in group activity in international politics. There has always been some form
of interest group presence in international affairs. For example, one of the most
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influential interests in the world, the Catholic Church, has been active
internationally for centuries. Since the mid-nineteenth century so have multinational corporations; and the Women’s International League for Peace and
Freedom dates from 1915.
A confluence of factors accounts for the explosion in international lobbying
activity in recent decades. These factors include: the increasing importance of
international organizations like the United Nations (UN) and its various agencies,
and regional organizations like the European Union (EU) with jurisdictions that
extend beyond national borders; the fact that many issues such as environmental
protection, wildlife management and combating the trade in child prostitution,
require an international approach; and increasing awareness of issues due to
advances in communications and the adoption of many international causes in the
western world (where most international interests originate and operate), by an
increasingly affluent middle class. According to, Howard Tolley, an authority on
international interest groups, without political parties and elections to voice
concerns at the international level, non-governmental pressure groups are even
more vital in world politics than interest groups are at the domestic level.
Evidence of the importance of international interest activity is found in the
size of the so-called foreign lobby in most national capitals of the world, especially
those in the western world such as Washington, D.C., London, Paris and Brussels.
There are a myriad of international lobbies, but four broad categories constitute the
vast majority of them.
1. Foreign Governments and International Organizations. For example,
approximately 170 countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and of these an
estimated 120 hire Americans to lobby on their behalf for such benefits as foreign aid
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and military support. International organizations include the UN and its various
affiliates like UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization), the EU, and the Organization of American States (OAS).
2. Business Corporations (Multi-nationals) and Business Trade Associations.
Multinationals include well-known companies like Coca Cola, Honda, Volvo and
Microsoft. Others, like Glaxco (a British pharmaceutical manufacturer) and
Cominco (a Canadian mining company), are less well-known but nevertheless are
very active internationally. Examples of business trade associations include the
International Chamber of Commerce, active in many national capitals, and the
European Association of Manufacturers of Business Machines and Information
Technology (EUROBIT), active in the EU in Brussels and Strasbourg.
3. Special Interest Cause Groups. These include such organizations as the
World Council of Churches, the Baptist World Alliance, the Anglican Communion,
international networks of pro-choice and pro-life groups, and the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, an organization of indigenous peoples of the Arctic and sub-Arctic
regions of North America, Europe and Asia.
4. International Public Interest Groups—Particularly Nongovernmental
Organizations (NGOs). The term NGO is used to designate a wide-range of groups
that focus on issues of broad public concern such as the environment, human rights,
child welfare, the status of women, and so on, as opposed to the specific interests of
particular businesses, groups or sectors of society such as motor manufactures,
school teachers or university students. NGOs are not a new phenomenon in
international lobbying. An estimated 1,200 of them attended the San Francisco
meeting that drew up the UN charter in 1945. Today, environmental (including
wildlife protection) and human rights NGOs have the highest profiles and the most
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scholarship written about them. Besides Greenpeace, there are scores of
international environmental interests including: Friends of the Earth, Earth Action,
the Neptune Group, the World Wide Fund and Birdlife International. In addition to
Amnesty International, human rights NGOs include: the International Federation of
Human Rights Leagues, Survival International (working to protect indigenous
peoples), and various women’s’ and children’s’ rights groups. Relief NGOs such as
Oxfam, the International Save the Children Alliance and Breadline Africa are also
very active as lobbying forces.
An excellent example of the increasing importance of interest groups in a
regional organization is that of the EU. Established with six member nations in 1957
and now with fifteen, interest group activity expanded markedly in the 1990s after a
move to establish a single market and a common currency. As the EU increased its
policy jurisdiction and began to chip away at the policy making authority of
member nations, particularly in the area of agriculture and trade policy, a wide
range of so-called Euro-groups grew up representing various interests and often
organized as federations of groups from the member nations. These include such
wide-ranging organizations as: the Association of European Chambers of Commerce
and Industry (EUROCHAM), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the
European Union of Dentists, the European Women’s Lobby, the European
Environmental Bureau and the European Consumers’ Organization. In addition,
because the EU is a major trading bloc, many non-member interests, mainly
businesses, have a presence, from the Japanese to the Australians to the Brazilians to
those from the United States. One of the most respected interests in Brussels is
AMCHAM (the American Chamber of Commerce) and its EU Committee, which
represents American businesses operating in the EU.
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There is considerable debate about both the effectiveness of international
interests, particularly NGOs, and questions—in some cases concerns—about their
role and the extent to which they undermine national sovereignty. Different
international organizations may define influence or success differently. To some,
getting an issue, like combating the illegal trade in ivory, on a country’s political
agenda may be enough. To others achieving anything short of major policy changes,
such as Greenpeace’s attempts to ban baby seal hunting, would be considered a
failure. And there is no doubt that the pressure that can be brought to bear by major
NGOs, as with those opposed to deforestation of the Amazon basin, can undermine
the decision-making within a country, especially a poor nation. But NGOs,
particularly in the area of the environment and human rights, also affect the
sovereignty of rich nations as evidenced in the Helsinki human rights accords and
the Kyoto accords on the environment.
With increasing globalization in all its manifestations, it is certain that
international interest group activity will expand and there will be an increasing
interdependence between many domestic and international interests. A current
example of this is provided by the EU. Whether the increasing importance of Eurolobbies as important players in the EU policy processes will stimulate or retard the
growth of interests within the fifteen member nations is as yet a matter of conjecture.
However, it is difficult to imagine that the growth of Euro-lobbies can occur without
some impact upon and reconfiguration of the organization of interests at the
domestic level. For example, the British Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries
(MAFF) has less and less control over British agricultural policy as more and more
agricultural policy is made in Brussels. This has changed the role of British farmers
in domestic politics as their interest groups focus more on Brussels and less on
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London. In France it also means that the well publicized mass public protests by
farmers are less likely to have a policy impact on the French government than they
did in the past.
CONCERNS ABOUT INTEREST GROUPS AND INTEREST GROUP REGULATION
All political institutions can have both positive and negative effects on a
political system. Nowhere is this more evident than with interest groups. This
situation is reflected in an ambivalent attitude toward them among the public and
political leaders in democracies and authoritarian regimes alike. For example,
Americans, who join interest groups by the tens of millions, are particularly
skeptical of the detrimental effects of “special interests”; Israelis long saw interest
groups as signifying particularistic sentiments and not the communal values needed
to build a new nation after World War II; and corporatist regimes like those of
Franco’s Spain and pre-World War II Austria viewed interest groups with great
suspicion.
The crux of this ambivalence stems from the fact that, although interest
groups are indispensable to all political systems, they have the potential to
undermine, and in some cases destroy the fundamental goals of a society. Concerns
about the detrimental effects of interest groups and the ways of attempting to deal
with them are different in liberal democracies and authoritarian systems.
In liberal democracies the concerns mainly focus on the extent to which interest
groups undermine democracy. Despite the rhetoric of many groups that their goals are
“in the public interest,” these goals are often narrow and sometimes very self-serving:
gaining a tax break, getting an exemption from a regulation, securing a budget
appropriation, promoting a value, like pro or anti abortion, shared by only a segment of
35
the population, and so on. What is contradictory about the relationship between the
private political goals and public roles of interest groups, is that the positive public roles
are purely incidental. With the minor exception of good government groups like
Common Cause and the League of Women Voters and some think tanks, in their
private capacity interest groups do not exist to improve democracy or to improve the
functioning of the political process. Thus, the positive public role of interest groups is a
paradoxical byproduct of the sum of their selfish interests. The concerns about interest
groups in democracies fall into four major categories.
First, as vehicles of representation, interest groups are far from ideal as they do
not represent all segments of the population equally. Their bias is toward the bettereducated, higher-income, white, and male segments of the population. Minorities
(including women) and the less-well-educated and lower-income segments are
underrepresented by interest groups. Political parties, which in essence are umbrella
organizations embracing a host of like-minded groups and interests, are far more
representative political organizations. Second, resources—mainly money—do matter,
and those groups who have the most resources tend to be more successful in gaining
the all-important access as a prerequisite to influence than those groups with fewer
resources. Third, extensive resources--including money, good lobbyists and perhaps
favored status with government officials—mean that some groups exert power out of
all proportion to the number of their members, and, in some instances, they can thwart
the will of a much larger number of people favoring a cause. For instance, in the U.S. a
combination of physicians, pharmaceutical companies and medical insurance
interests—perhaps totaling 500,000 persons—have been able to effectively prevent
national health insurance from being enacted that would benefit the nearly 40 million
Americans without medical coverage. The most recent success of this powerful
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coalition was defeating President Clinton’s health insurance plan in 1993-94. Fourth,
there is often concern about the activities of foreign lobbies influencing policy that
might be considered against a country’s national interest particularly on issues of
national security.
In non-pluralist systems, concerns about interest groups arise mainly from the
ability of groups and interests to undermine the national interest or major societal
goals which are often expressed in the official ideology (as in communism) or as
articulated by the leader or leadership, as in Chile under General Pinochet, where
the military junta running the country sought to protect itself from communism and
other radical elements. Together with a free press and political parties,
independently formed interest groups are potentially a major source of opposition
to any authoritarian government. Thus, the level of concern about interest groups
and the approach to deal with it varies with the degree of authoritarianism and the
extent to which a regime sees independent interest groups as a threat to its goals.
To deal with these concerns many liberal democratic governments and all
authoritarian regimes have adopted some form of regulation (more appropriately
termed control in authoritarian systems) of interest group activity. In all systems,
the general goal of regulation is to promote the public interest, however defined,
over that of the narrow segments of society represented by various interest groups.
In its specific form, however, regulation varies considerably in scope and extent and
in particular focus between democratic and authoritarian regimes. In authoritarian
regimes, where independent interest groups are viewed with great suspicion, the
scope of control is more or less wide-ranging and the major focus is to control group
formation and channel their access and influence. The form of control varies from
the banning of some interest groups and the co-option of others in state corporatist
37
systems like Nazi Germany to the outright banning of all private interests in extreme
communist regimes like that of communist Albania and the early years of the
Peoples’ Republic of China.
In liberal democracies, the underlying principle is that regulating interest
groups in some ways will enhance democracy. However, few, if any, restrictions are
placed on group formation and the right to lobby government. Indeed, these are
guaranteed constitutional rights in federal Constitution and many state constitutions
in the U.S. Instead, in liberal democracies regulation is used to attempt to deal with
the perceived ethical questions surrounding lobbying and to even up the political
playing field in terms of access and influence. Most often this is done not so much
by restricting access and attempting to blunt influence directly, but through public
exposure or monitoring of interest group activity by requiring interest groups and
their lobbyists to register with public authorities and declare their objects of
lobbying and their expenditures. The theory behind this monitoring is that other
interest groups, public officials and the public at large will be more informed about
group activity and thus able to plan political action including lobbying and voting
accordingly. However, the extent of regulation varies widely across democracies
from the U.S., which has the longest history and the most extensive regulations, to
western European countries which have far less extensive regulation, to Australia
which tried regulation and then abandoned it in favor of self regulation by interest
groups and lobbyists. This wide disparity reflects, among other factors, political
cultures, political power structures plus inconclusive evidence as to whether or not
regulation does, in fact, enhance democracy.
THE FUTURE OF INTEREST GROUPS
38
AND INTEREST GROUP SYSTEMS
As a natural and indispensable part of politics and policy making, the role of
interest groups will continue in all political systems for as long as human beings
engage in politics. Moreover, in the future interest group activity is likely to
increase in all political systems.
A major reason why group activity is likely to expand is that interest groups
are among the most, if not the most adaptable, resilient and effective of all political
institutions and generally much more so than their major counterparts of political
parties and social movements. In part, this is because interest groups coalesce
around natural or specific and usually narrow communities (like gays, car
manufacturers, veterans, etc.) and thus have a more common identity and
community of interest among their membership than the more artificial entities of
parties and social movements. Furthermore, the latter two organizations often
embrace a wide range of perspectives and have organizational structures that are
often very cumbersome (as with many parties) or very loose (as with many social
movements) and that make it much harder for them to adapt to changing political
circumstances than for interest groups. Thus, interest groups are much more
enduring and, over the long-term, the most likely vehicle to be used by those
seeking benefits from government. And the broader the range of demands placed
on government, the more interest groups are likely to develop. In fact, perhaps the
major reason for the future expansion of interest group activity is that, in all types of
political systems, government activity is likely to expand and affect existing interests
more extensively, thereby forcing individuals and organizations to become
politically active to protect or promote their interests.
39
The specific reasons for expansion in group activity and the specific form it
will take will vary among types of systems. In political systems in transition from
authoritarianism to liberal democracy, as in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa and
Latin America, a combination of factors will be at work, including the lifting of
restrictions on the right to organize, the increasing importance of business and
business interests (especially in former Communist countries), and an increasing
presence of foreign and international interests. In developing countries, like India,
Mexico and Indonesia, the factors at work will be an expanding economy, the rise of
a middle class and a consequent increase in political efficacy on the part of the
population in general.
In post-industrial liberal democracies interest group activity will likely
expand due to the increasing breakdown of political ideology and the increasing
pragmatism or “Americanization” of these systems where interest groups are seen
as more able to deliver political benefits than parties; an increasing international and
transnational presence of interests in individual countries and organizations like the
EU; an expansion in the so-called non-profit or “third sector” and its increasing use
by government to deliver services and the need of the sector to obtain government
funds.
With this increase in interest group activity the distinction between groups,
political parties and social movements is likely to become increasingly blurred and
the definition of interest group set out earlier may need modification. More interest
groups will become “interest parties”—narrowly based organizations with perhaps
a single issue that attempt to gain seats in a parliament to push their cause and
might become part of a governing coalition. Some of the religious parties in Israel
can be considered interest parties as could Solidarity in Poland in the 1980s when it
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could also be considered a social movement, as well as many parties in post
communist Eastern Europe such as the Independent Smallholders’ Party in
Hungary.
This expansion, and particularly the internationalization of interest group
activity, will produce some homogenization in the organization of interests, their
role in political systems and the techniques they use to gain access and exert
influence. It will also likely change the relationship between domestic and
international interests. However, it should not be assumed that as underdeveloped
societies become more developed and authoritarian societies become more pluralist,
this increase in group activity will follow some linear pattern that will ultimately
result in most group systems resembling those of post industrial pluralist
democracies. In some developing societies and transitional ones too, if existing
patterns of representation—such as personal networks of informal representation as
well as institutional representation—are not replaced by effective formal interest
groups, some societies may lapse back into authoritarian rule, as has often been the
case in Latin America. Furthermore, specific governmental structures, political
culture, deep-rooted ideology, historical practice and short-term political
circumstances will likely always work to give interest group activity many unique
elements in each country.
Clive S. Thomas
March 25, 2004