Government

Chapter 9:

Learning Objectives

1. Identify various types of organized interests and distinguish interest groups from political parties.

2. Describe strategies used by interest groups to influence the political process.

3. Assess the organizational problems facing interest groups and the factors contributing to their success.

4. List some of the most powerful interest groups and explain their purposes and strategies.

5. Evaluate the costs and benefits of interest group activity for American democracy.

Introduction

Whereas political parties mainly exist to support campaigns and win elections, interest groups seek to directly influence government policy. Interest groups play an important role in extending the practice of democracy by linking citizens and citizen groups to their government in a more permanent fashion than do periodic elections. Interest groups may educate voters and public officials on the issues, support candidates in their campaigns, and litigate in the courts, among other functions. But the relationship of interest groups to democracy is neither simple nor consistently beneficial. Interest groups may also pursue specific objectives harmful to society’s larger interests. This lesson explores the range of interest group activity in the American political system and evaluates the impact of interest groups on policy and, more generally, the democratic process.

Study Questions

1. How do interest groups differ from political parties?

2. Why do interest groups form?

3. Define the following:

a. The collective action problem

b. Free riders

4. Why are some groups more successful in mobilizing their potential membership than others?

5. Define the following types of interest groups and give at least one example of each, including:

a. Public interest groups

b. Economic interest groups

c. Government groups

d. Single-issue vs. Multi-issue

e. Political Action Committees

f. Ideological

6. What is the difference between a "public" and a "special" interest? Is the dividing line usually clear? Give an example.

7. What kind of individuals are more likely to be represented in interest groups?

8. What strategies do interest groups use to achieve their goals? Discuss the following:

a. Lobbying

b. Grass-roots organization (vs. "astro-turfing")

c. Public relations

d. PACs and political contributions

e. Advertisements

f. Demonstrations

9. How do lobbyists practice their trade? What legal constraints have been placed on lobbying?

10. Explain some of the problems associated with interest group participation in the policy-making process. To what phenomena do the following phrases refer?

a. Iron triangles

b. The revolving door

c. Capture theory of regulation

11. The number of lobbyists working in Washington, DC has more than doubled in the last eight years. Many believe that the influence of lobbyists has proven seriously corrosive to democratic principles. Do you agree?

12. What is the theory known as pluralism?

13. Contrast pluralism with the elitist understanding of American politics.

Article 2:

Role of Interest Groups

ADA Text Version

Interest Groups vs. Political Parties

In theory, democratic governments should represent the interests of their citizens. In practice, however, there are a seemingly unlimited number of interests in society. Only interests that are organized are capable of making a difference in government policy. Like political parties, interest groups connect individuals to government in a more permanent and meaningful way than merely voting. While the motives of interest groups and formal political parties overlap to considerable extent, the difference between them is mainly one of emphasis. Unlike political parties, interest groups' primary purpose is changing public policy rather than electing officials to public office. While who holds office is clearly relevant to the goal of organized interests, it is secondary to the goal of persuading government officers and the public to enact or oppose specific policies. Interest groups also tend to focus on a more narrow range of issues, or even a single issue, in contrast to political parties.

Interest Group Tactics

Interest groups, sometimes called pressure groups, exhibit extraordinary diversity of purpose and organization. However, they largely draw upon the same playbook of tactics. They lobby, mobilize grassroots support, educate, donate money to political campaigns, file lawsuits, and organize demonstrations. They attempt to educate and persuade both officeholders and the public about the causes they champion. Interest groups frequently form coalitions to enhance their influence on legislative outcomes. Interest groups also share some of the same difficulties in mobilizing their potential membership.

Pluralism

The theory of  pluralism  assumes an important and mostly beneficial role for interest groups in the functioning of a healthy democracy. Interest groups enrich democratic government by amplifying minority voices and making government responsive to diverse interests which election results might not otherwise communicate. It is clear, however, that groups vary widely in the power they wield and do not always wield this power in the public interest. Powerful organizations may sometimes act as  de facto partners in government but without the accountability of elected politicians. The combination of interest groups and money may also skew the political landscape.

The Influencers: Who Are We?

An interest group is an organization of people with similar attitudes and opinions that tries to influence government policy regarding specific issues. The Encyclopedia of Interest Groups and Lobbyists in the United States identifies thirteen categories of interest groups, such as environment, business, or labor.

Political parties are also organizations of like-minded individuals that seek to influence government policy. However, political parties' primary focus is contesting and winning elections. Political parties also address a broader range of issues than interest groups.

This activity tests your knowledge about the differences between interest groups and political parties.

Article 3:

Types of Interest Groups

ADA Text Version

The variety of interest groups reflects the diversity of American citizens and their political preferences. They range from extremely focused single-issue organizations such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to public interest groups such as Public Citizen, an alliance of organizations committed to a variety of consumer protection issues. They may be economic or ideological in their orientation. They all seek access to public officials in a position to advance their agendas.

Economic and Professional Interest Groups

Many successful interest groups represent specific economic and professional concerns. These groups exist primarily to pursue or defend the financial interests of their members. The National Association of Manufacturers for example, seeks to protect the interests of manufacturing industries increasingly threatened by foreign competition. It has lobbied Congress for protection in the form of restrictions on foreign imports and attempts to suppress what it considers unfair trade practices by other countries. Specific agricultural industries such as the sugar and cotton lobbies have been particularly successful in securing billions of dollars per year in government subsidies despite their enormous profitability. More generally, the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, representing an alliance of powerful companies, advocate for a broad range of policies favorable to business. While corporations and industry are important to the health of the American economy, many Americans worry that some corporations exert disproportionate influence on the policymaking process. The relative power of corporations, however, varies depending on the policy area and the party in power. In areas such as energy, trade, and financial regulation, for example, corporate influence is probably at its peak.

Although union membership has declined significantly since its peak in the 1950s, organized labor (such as the AFL-CIO) continues to play an influential role in the political process, particularly vis-à-vis the Democratic Party and congressmen from  closed shop  and  rust belt  states where manufacturing is threatened but still important. Interest groups advocating on behalf of specific professions such as doctors (American Medical Association), trial lawyers (American Association for Justice), and teachers (National Education Association) often bring considerable pressure to bear on politicians, depending on the issue.

As a general rule, and with some very notable exceptions, groups organized around economic interests tend to be more effective in influencing public policy than groups based on noneconomic interests. This is typically because the benefits they seek to obtain from government are acutely felt by their members, who are often easier to mobilize.

Social Movement and Religious Groups

Social movement and religious groups are two types of interest groups for which their primary focus is not economic. For example, a subset of social movement groups represents the interests of classes of people who have been historically discriminated against or disadvantaged. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has a long history of fighting for equal rights primarily on behalf of African Americans, both in the courtroom and in legislatures. Hispanic Americans have their counterpart in the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF.

Women's organizations include the more broadly themed National Organization for Women (NOW), the League of Women Voters, and Emily's List, the latter specializing in raising money to contribute to the political campaigns of female candidates. Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, or simply "Lambda," lobbies and litigates on behalf of civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals. It has been an active participant in state-by-state debates over same-sex marriage.

One of the most powerful interest groups, however, champions the concerns of the elderly and retired. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) claims over thirty million members and has aggressively defended programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They successfully lobbied for a massive expansion of governmental prescription drug benefits in 2003. Because elderly citizens vote at a rate higher than average Americans and often have time to devote to the study of political issues and advocacy, incumbent politicians ignore the AARP at their own peril.

A major, and more recent, force to emerge in American politics is a collection of groups and voters often referred to as the "religious right." Although Christian activism has been frequently and powerfully expressed throughout American history (e.g., the Abolitionist Movement, the Temperance Movement, the Civil Rights Movement), the religious right became an important source of support for the Republican Party starting with the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. The religious right included the Moral Majority, founded by Reverend Jerry Falwell in 1978, and the more recent and highly influential Christian Coalition. Not all religious interest groups fall on the conservative end of the political spectrum, but their center of gravity, at least from the standpoint of national influence, has rested with political conservatives in the recent decades.

The 1960s gave rise to a host of new movements that have found institutional expression in various interest groups. Among these was the environmental movement. The 21st century has witnessed an intensification of the debate over how to balance economic growth with ecology. Prominent environmental advocacy groups include the more mainstream Sierra Club and the more radical Greenpeace, famous for its efforts to interfere with commercial whaling.

Ideological Organizations

Some interest groups coalesce around specific ideological themes, usually corresponding to the major political labels of conservative, liberal, and libertarian. Two, in particular, focus on providing information about the voting records of congressional lawmakers. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) grades members by ranking them on a scale of zero to one hundred. Its conservative twin, The American Conservative Union (ACU) does the same. One of the more interesting developments of the last few decades has been the extraordinary growth of the think tank industry. Think tanks are nonprofit organizations that specialize in policy research intended to inform and influence politicians and policymakers. However, they are usually founded under the auspices of a particular ideological bias. Powerful think tanks include the liberal-leaning Brookings Institute, the Heritage Foundation (conservative), and the CATO Institute (libertarian).

Government Lobbies

In a federal system such as the United States, governments themselves function as interest groups, and very effective ones at that. School districts and community college districts compete with university systems for education funds. Cities and counties lobby state legislatures, and state legislatures and governors lobby Congress for federal money, often in the form of earmarks. Earmarks are specific spending items within an appropriation bill that are expressly targeted at a state or congressional district. Important government interest groups include the National Governors Association and National League of Cities.

Public Interest Groups

The distinction between a public interest group and what critics sometimes derisively refer to as a special interest group can be slippery. Almost all interest groups, from dairy farmers to teachers will claim that their agenda serves the public interest, even if only indirectly. After all, milk builds strong bones in children and higher pay for teachers will attract more talented applicants to our schools. Corporate America is no exception. Charles Wilson, the CEO of General Motors, an automobile company that has seen better times, was misquoted as saying "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." (What he really said was "…what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa.") Generally speaking, a public interest group is a group that seeks to help its members as well as the larger public. A good example is the group Common Cause, which lobbies for good government in the shape of election law and campaign finance reform.

Groups such as the Consumer Federation of America push for more specific benefits for consumers in the form of food, health, and product safety. Many public interest groups owe their existence to the energy and marketing skills of interest group entrepreneurs such as Ralph Nader, a longtime consumer advocate and third party presidential candidate.

Single-Issue Groups

While many interest groups pursue a broad agenda, others are extremely focused on a particular issue. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, is one group that has enjoyed considerable success in raising the drinking age and enacting stricter drinking-and-driving laws. Started by the mothers of individuals killed by drunk drivers, the organization tapped into the anger, grief, and concern of many citizens across the country to become a quite effective national organization. Organizations such as NARAL Pro-Choice America and The National Right-to-Life Committee pursue the cause of abortion rights and abortion restrictions, respectively. One of the most powerful single-issue groups is the National Rifle Association, or NRA. The NRA  boasts a passionate membership numbering in the millions and has effectively utilized an array of interest group tactics to defend gun owner rights and an expansive interpretation of the Second Amendment. Its money, organization, and public information campaigns have succeeded frequently in ejecting candidates who oppose its agenda from office. Conversely, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, while smaller and not as well-funded, has lobbied tirelessly for stronger federal and state regulation of firearms. It has achieved some notable successes, perhaps most memorably passage of the Brady Handgun Control Act in 1994.

The NRA vs. the Brady Campaign

Interest groups attempt to educate and influence policymakers and the public about the causes they champion. There are often interest groups representing opposite sides of one issue. This video looks at the strategies used by interest groups, as it examines the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence while they duel in Congress and the courts to define the Second Amendment's right to "keep and bear arms."

Video Focus Points

Look for answers to these questions when watching the video:

· Describe how interest groups differ from political parties.

· How do interest groups use strategies such as lobbying, donating money, and filing lawsuits to achieve their goals?

· Are interest groups beneficial or harmful to a representative democracy?

 

 CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING

 

Additional Resource

Websites

Economic and Professional Interest Groups

AFL-CIO

American Association for Justice

American Medical Association

Business Roundtable

National Association of Manufacturers

National Education Association

US Chamber of Commerce

Social Movement and Religious Groups

American Association of Retired Persons

Christian Coalition of America

Emily's List

Greenpeace

Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund

League of Women Voters

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

National Organization for Women

Sierra Club

Ideological Organizations

American Conservative Union

Americans for Democratic Action

Brookings Institute

CATO Institute

The Heritage Foundation

Government Lobbies

National Governors Association

National League of Cities

Public Interest Groups

Common Cause

Consumer Federation of America

Single-Issue Groups

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)

NARAL Pro-Choice America

National Rifle Association

National Right-to-Life Committee

Article 4:

Interest Group Strategies

ADA Text Version

Interest groups pursue a wide variety of tactics to influence policy. The suitability of these tactics depends on several factors, including the nature of the policies being targeted, the political significance of a group's membership to politicians and policymakers, and the extent to which a group can achieve an "inside connection" with those officials. Almost all interest groups seek access to key policymakers to present their concerns, agendas, and needs, but some groups are much better at obtaining this than others.

Information

One of the most basic functions of interest groups is providing information to voters and policymakers. Interest group employees and volunteers are obliged to develop expertise in their issue so they may better represent their perspective on it to the public and politicians. Most well-established groups conduct extensive research on the issues. Not surprisingly, research performed by these organizations almost inevitably supports their official positions. Information may also be supplied in the form of fact sheets and voter guides relevant to a group's concerns. Public information campaigns may also play an important role in pressuring lawmakers as interest groups attempt to bring media attention and coverage to issues that support their cause. Public relations are a constant concern of larger interest groups and are aimed at creating a positive perception of the organization and its concerns.

Most legislators are not experts in many of the policy areas they are called to regulate and upon which they must vote. This is particularly true in state legislatures that are only part-time. Lobbyists representing a particular industry or issue play a role in educating lawmakers on areas in which the latter may have very limited knowledge. The same may be true for members of bureaucratic departments and agencies. While interest groups and their lobbyists can play a valuable role in informing policymakers, it is a fine line between education and undue influence. For example, the drafting of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was carried out behind closed doors and involved a large number of industry lobbyists. This generated accusations that lobbyists had practically written the legislation themselves.

Grassroots Mobilization

While lobbying seeks to place pressure on policymakers from the inside, interest groups frequently attempt to pressure them from the outside. Grassroots mobilization involves interest groups getting large numbers of constituents to contact their representatives, either in writing or in person. When members of Congress or state legislatures find their offices swamped with letters or emails from voters (or potential voters) excited about a particular issue, they take notice. Interest groups are most likely to pursue this tactic when a vote on an important issue in a legislature is approaching. It is an attractive technique of bringing pressure to bear on the government because it is relatively cheap. Similarly, a large number of citizens might organize to contact their legislative members in person. The convergence of thousands of members of a professional group, doctors or teachers, for example, on the grounds of Congress or a state legislature, is an impressive spectacle calculated to make a strong impression on lawmakers.

Lobbying

Legend has it that the term lobbying emerged from the post-Civil War practice of individuals waiting in the lobbies of legislative buildings to press their concerns and requests upon legislators. Lobbying refers to the activities of interest groups directed at influencing legislators and other policymakers to support their positions. In contrast with other interest group tactics, lobbyists personally meet with policymakers to persuade them to support their interests. Interest groups that have access, or a privileged relationship with policymakers, wield greater influence than groups that do not.

Lobbyists can provide legislators and their often overworked staffs with information, talking points on legislation, and the prospect of support by interest group members and those they represent. Lobbyists work not only with Congress and state legislatures, but bureaucratic agencies and their regulatory bodies as well. Lobbying firms, their offices lining the now famous (or infamous) K Street of Washington, DC, have proliferated. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, total spending on lobbying the federal government has almost tripled since 1998, to $3.3 billion, while the number of registered lobbyists has increased from 10,407 to 12,633 in 2012.

Campaign Support

While interest groups are primarily interested in influencing policy as opposed to sponsoring candidates and winning elections, attempting to influence electoral outcomes is another important interest group tactic. Interest groups aid candidates who pledge to support their policy preferences by mobilizing voters ("getting out the vote"), volunteering to work for their campaigns, and educating voters on the candidates' positions. A particularly potent form of campaign support is the creation of political action committees, or PACs. Political action committees are organizations formed by interest groups (corporations, unions, issue groups, etc.) to raise money from their members which they then contribute to political candidates.

PAC money represents a significant percentage of campaign contributions to candidates, particularly in races for the US House of Representatives. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, however, places limits on how much money PACs may contribute to an individual candidate in a given election. Many interest groups split their PAC money among the Democratic and Republican parties to hedge their electoral bets. Certain groups, such as unions, however, overwhelmingly give to Democratic candidates while conservative groups give predominantly to Republican candidates.

Litigation and Amicus Curiae

While interest groups cannot actually lobby judges as they do legislators and bureaucrats, they can use the judicial process, or intervene on behalf of others, to shape policy outcomes. Some groups, such as Lambda Legal and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), make litigation strategies a primary focus of their efforts. A group may file a lawsuit itself in state or federal court to challenge the legality or constitutionality of a law. Before the Civil Rights movement emerged as a social force in the 1950s and 1960s, the NAACP had been using lawsuits for decades as a way of weakening the legal doctrine of "separate but equal." The group was successful in ultimately destroying this doctrine in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education(1954). The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, has initiated more lawsuits than any other nongovernmental organization, resulting in a long record of federal court decisions, including Supreme Court decisions, greatly expanding the definition of the First Amendment and other constitutional freedoms.

When interest groups aren't directly parties to lawsuits themselves, they may sponsor litigants in legal cases of interest to their causes, paying for a plaintiff's or defendant's legal expenses or providing free legal representation directly. Alternatively, they may intervene more indirectly by submitting an amicus curiae, or "friend of the court," legal brief. An amicus brief is a legal brief submitted by an organization that is not a party to the lawsuit, setting forth its legal arguments in hopes of influencing a court's decision. Interest groups may also intervene in the judicial nomination process, particularly in controversial nominations to the US Supreme Court.

Coalition Building

Some interest groups are quite powerful even when standing alone, but most interest groups, even the more powerful, frequently find it useful to form coalitions with other interest groups on matters of shared concern. Such alliances may be the product of shared institutional conviction but may also be the product of political expediency.

Protests and Demonstrations

Another tactic pursued by some pressure groups is the organization of demonstrations or protests. Demonstrations, such as the "Million Man March" in 1995 or the "Tea Party" protests that followed the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008, offer the considerable advantage of drawing media coverage and thus public attention to a particular cause or concern. However, mass demonstrations rarely have as lasting or effective an impact on public policy as do less colorful but more common tactics such as lobbying and campaign support activities.

One other interest group tactic deserves mention, mainly because it presents an enduring ethical dilemma in American political thought and practice. Nonviolent civil disobedience, or the willful violation of laws to protest their injustice, has a long history (as does its violent counterpart) in American political life. African American "sit-ins" at racially segregated lunch counters in the South raised public awareness of racial injustices during the Civil Rights movement. Because democratic government is based on the rule of law, however, civil disobedience can be a very risky strategy for a group as well as the individuals involved. This is particularly true if nonviolent disobedience turns violent.

Interest Group's Toolbox

Interest groups rely heavily on lobbying as a way to influence legislation and persuade political leaders to support their organizations. To be effective, interest groups employ a variety of tools or strategies to influence political leaders and policy at the state and national level.

This activity consists of two parts. Part 1 describes the techniques interest groups use to accomplish their goals. Part 2 tests your knowledge about interest groups.

 LAUNCH ACTIVITY

 

Additional Resources

Websites

American League of Lobbyists The website for this nonprofit organization includes lobbying in the news, press releases and statements, resource materials, a code of ethics, and a database of state lobbying organizations.

OpenSecrets.org The website provides a section that lists campaign contributions by PACs and donations to PACs, broken down by sector, industry and unique PAC.

Books

Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, by Richard Feldman.  Feldman offers a behind-the-scenes account of America’s firearms debate, from the perspective of a former top lobbyist for the NRA. Feldman describes meeting with legislators and using the pressure of his organization to influence gun control policy.

The Third House: Lobbyists and Lobbying In the States, by Alan Rosenthal.  A favorite among professors and students alike, this book thoroughly examines the lobbying scene—the settings in which lobbying takes place, the types and styles of lobbyists, the broad range of approaches and techniques used by lobbyists, and the role and influence of lobbying in our system of representative democracy.

Films/Videos

Thank You for Smoking (2005), directed by Jason Reitman.  Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhardt) is a handsome, smooth-talking lobbyist for a pro-tobacco interest group known as "The Academy of Tobacco Studies." Naylor’s job is to defend Big Tobacco in the media and oppose legislation that might hinder cigarette sales. A satirical take on the role of interest groups in American politics.

Article 5:

Interest Group Success

ADA Text Version

The success of interest groups in influencing government policy depends on several factors.

Membership

One of the most important is a group's ability to mobilize its potential membership. An obstacle facing all interest groups in this regard is the free rider problem. The free rider problem refers to the fact that potential members of a group often don't join because they can benefit from that group's efforts without joining or contributing to its efforts. For example, the Sierra Club, an important environmental group, might successfully lobby the government for stricter laws on air pollution resulting in cleaner air. All citizens will enjoy the benefits of breathing cleaner air whether or not they are members of the Sierra Club and paid their membership dues. This is because clean air is a collective good. A collective good is a resource or benefit that cannot be restricted to members of a particular group.

While leadership of an organization can play a very important role in determining an organization's success, there is significant class bias in interest group effectiveness, just as there is in voter turnout. Higher income and better educated citizens are more likely to form and join interest groups than their lower income, lesser educated counterparts. Interest groups representing the concerns of higher income and better educated citizens are more effective in achieving favorable policy outcomes than those representing citizens more socioeconomically disadvantaged. It is probably an understatement to say that organizations lobbying on behalf of the working poor, the homeless, and single mothers are not powerful competitors in the policy arena. As American political scientist Elmer Eric Schattschneider wrote, "The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class bias."

Individual Goods vs. Collective Goods

It follows that those interest groups that offer individual goods, benefits that can be restricted to members of a particular group, as well as collective goods, are generally more successful than organizations that only offer collective goods. While the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) pursues a range of policies that benefit older citizens as a whole (e.g., cheaper prescription drugs, cost of living adjustments for those on Social Security), they also provide their members with specific advantages like informational magazines and financial products available only to dues-paying members, as well as discounts on products, travel, and insurance.

Issue Intensity

Interest group success also depends on the intensity an issue inspires in its potential members. The NRA, for example, is largely successful because there are millions of Americans who care passionately about gun ownership rights. Groups that are focused on specific issues, single-issue groups, tend to be more successful than those that target a wide variety of issues. As a general rule, corporate and economic interests tend to have greater influence than environmental and social movement groups because their potential membership is smaller, more cohesive, and they often have greater access to public officeholders. The benefits that economic interest groups are able to secure for their members (e.g., specific jobs saved, profits increased, corporate taxes lowered) are more concentrated, while the costs to tens of millions of nonmembers, such as slightly higher prices paid for a product, are widely spread out and less intensely experienced.

The Successful Interest Group Puzzle

Throughout our history, groups have organized to pressure the government for changes in policy. Being a successful interest group requires its leaders and members put together the right pieces.

This activity focuses on the characteristics of successful interest group

Article 6:

Interest Groups and Democracy

ADA Text Version

Concern about the role of interest groups in a representative democracy dates to before the ratification of the US Constitution. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrestled with the problem of  factions  in a republican form of government and how to control them. On the one hand, interest groups are an inevitable and beneficial aspect of any democracy. They connect citizens more closely to their government, help hold public officials accountable, and communicate citizen policy preferences to government much more precisely than periodic elections. The emergence of diverse interest groups and the willingness of citizens to join are vital to a healthy democracy. The intensity of citizen involvement in such groups is one way political scientists gauge what some have called social capital, a blanket term referring to the networks of civic engagement, trust, and cooperation in a society. Societies that boast a high level of social capital are better able to successfully tackle common problems.

Pluralism vs. Elitism

On the other hand, the playing field is not exactly level and some interest groups are much more successful in gaining influence over government policy than others. The preferences of sometimes extremely small but well-organized minorities frequently triumph over the opinion of the unorganized majority of citizens. Political scientists differ on the extent to which power is distributed across interest groups in our political system. Pluralism is the theory that power is widely distributed among a wide range of competing interest groups and no particular group of interests dominates the political process over time. Elite theory, however, contends that a relatively small number of powerful interests dominate policymaking at the federal, state, and local levels.

The Iron Triangle

Public opinion polls demonstrate that many American citizens believe that government represents special interests rather than the interests of ordinary citizens. Several aspects of interest group politics suggest that this concern may be legitimate. Lobbying, in particular, raises concern about the abuse of the process by powerful interests. Political scientists have described the tight and mutually beneficial relationships that develop between members of congressional committees, interest groups, and government agencies as  iron triangles . Each member of these triads derives advantage from the other. Members of Congress receive political and financial support from interest groups in the form of campaign contributions and jobs in their districts or states. Interest groups get favorable treatment by members of Congress or lucrative government contracts. Government bureaucracies receive important political and budgetary support from Congressional committees, whose employees may later go to work for the interest groups with whom they interact.

The Revolving Door

This latter phenomenon of government employees, including members of Congress, going to work for groups or companies that used to lobby them has been called the  revolving door . It creates at the very least the appearance of impropriety. A very large percentage of US House and Senate members who leave office go to work as lobbyists, some even starting their own lobbying firms. Large corporate interests are especially well represented in the policy process because their wealth can purchase formidable lobbying machines. At one point, Boeing, a large manufacturer of aircraft with billions of dollars in government contracts, maintained as many as 97 paid lobbyists in Washington, DC alone. That's nearly one lobbyist for every member of the US Senate.

Capture Theory of Regulation

It would seem that business does enjoy a "privileged position." Critics of industry influence on the policy process argue that many of the government regulatory agencies created to police various industries are "captured" and come to identify with the very industries they are supposed to regulate. This is sometimes referred to as the "capture theory of regulation." Although bribery, the exchange of money for specific votes or favors, is illegal, the ability of corporations and unions to form PACs and channel large amounts of money to political candidates in the form of campaign contributions must affect policy outcomes some of the time.

Political Gridlock

While pluralist theory affirms the essentially beneficial role of interest groups in our politics, on balance, elite theory echoes the popular suspicion of many that the rules of the game are rigged. In addition to the role that money plays in the political process and the privileged position of business, a more general critique of interest group politics is that it leads to gridlock. Because American political parties are much more decentralized and ultimately weaker than their counterparts in most other democracies, the legislative arena is over-crowded with the pleadings of special interests that drown out the voice of the public interest. This critique recognizes the essential tension in the role played by interest groups in a democracy. Interest groups are a natural outgrowth of a free and vibrant civil society, and their right to speak is protected by the First Amendment. However, there is no constitutional right requiring that all speech be given an equal opportunity to be heard.

Virtual Roundtable

Interest groups play a role in democratic governments by providing a collective voice for individuals and interests who otherwise might not be heard. It is clear, however, that interest groups vary widely in the power they wield. Some interest groups may not always act in the public's best interest. Is the increasing influence of interest groups in the American political system beneficial for the general public?