Interest Groups and Politics

The word interest by first instance we know it something that will attract a person, or a group. After seeing the tittle of the chapter we know that interest groups and politics have something in common. Yet in politics candidate and government officials are supported by different groups that as a goal are to obtain social power. The term interest group refers to any voluntary association that looks after public promotion and creates advantages for its cause. Political parties could not be held if it was not by their interest groups that they are supported by.

Some are organized with the purpose of lobbying governmental officials on behalf of one or another cause. For instance, the Sierra Club in the United States. It’s an organization that lobbies for the preservation of wilderness areas. Other groups may be organized primarily for other purposes but take on lobbying and other ways of influencing policy as an important task.

A university is a clear example of this. Their primary goal is to educate students and conduct research but is likely to maintain one or two people to affect the government on bills that concern it.

There is a high number of interest groups in a modern state, so many that it is considerably hard to count them. Interest groups are not confined to democracies or open societies. Every single state has interest groups. Some do not permit a wide diversity of formally organized, politically active groups to exist, since this would seem threatening to their governments.

However, even in such states, organizations set up for other purposes. For instance, institutions such as the army, universities, scientific associations, sports clubs, natural history clubs, and factories exert political influence to held mold the government policies.

Interest groups are probably the main vessel in most states for representing public opinion and bringing it to bear in an organized way on the governmental authorities. Political parties cannot do this very well, because they are involved in trying to acquire governmental power for themselves.

  

Perhaps the most universal and significant break between groups that are readily organized and those that are difficult to organize is represented by producer interests and consumer interests.

A producer interest is any group of people involved in producing some good. For any product, there may be a few producer interests: a corporation, a trade union, and one or more professional organizations.

On the other hand, a consumer interest group is a group of people consuming a product. Most people who share in consuming a product are not formally organized, that is why it is hard to provide examples of these.

Producer interests are always easier to organize than consumer interests since their interest is more focused on certain thing. This is something that happens all over the world. As a result, the government policies favor greatly the producers. Some interest groups can speak strongly and confidently as representatives of their interest, and they are listened to with respect.

The internal structure of interest groups is not very democratic; therefore, there is a real danger that their leaders may gradually drift away from the ordinary members and follow their own political line. Democratic accountability to the membership could prevent this, but in its absence, there is little to keep it from happening.

There are three mayor types of interest groups. They are the following: sectorial, institutional and promotional interest groups.

The sectorial groups are those that represent a sector of the economy. For instance a corporation, a union, an association of members of a profession, or, less frequently, a consumer groups.  Sectorial groups are usually effective. They also dominate most interest group systems.

The second type of interest group is institutional. They are set up primarily for purposes other than political activity and would certainly existed if they did not deal with politics; they become politically active only to defend their own interests in the state’s decisions.

Finally, the promotional groups, they organize around an idea or a point of view to support ethnic groups, foreign positions or religious values. They have increased throughout the decades around the world.

Without the need of an interest group we have a lack of a well-supported government. With the help provided from the interest group and the government, a favor for favor is their main goal. Throughout this process is how interest groups obtain their power from government and influence in decision making of policies and creation of laws. Interest groups for the most part are benefited economically.Interest groups