CHAPTER 9
Interest Groups: Organizing for Influence
Presentation by Eric Miller, Blinn College, Bryan, Texas.
E. E. Schattschneider
The flaw in the pluralist
heaven is that the heavenly
chorus sings with a strong
upper-class bias.
The Interest Group System



The interest-group system includes all interests that
are organized and seek political goals
Interest group = a faction
Typical Interest group functions
 Supporting
candidates for public office
 Working to influence legislators and policymakers
 Promoting public policies

The difference between political parties and the
typical interest group the
party addresses a broad range of issues
The Interest Group System

James Madison the
source of most interest groups or
factions is the unequal distribution of
property
 Worried that gov. would be dominated
by groups but recognized that a free
society must allow the advocacy of selfinterest- Federalist no. 10
The Interest Group System

Reasons for so many groups:
 American
tradition of free association
 the wide diversity of interests that exist in America
 America’s federal system- multiple gov. entities
The Interest Group System


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Alexis de Tocqueville describes America as “a nation of
joiners”
Citizens of the U.S. are more actively involved in
interest groups and community causes than other nations
Interest group activity is basic to democracy because it
promotes the concern of various interests in society
The Interest Group System


Economic Groups
The organizational edge: economic groups versus citizens’ groups

Private (Individual) goods vs. collective (public) goods

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Private- Material Incentive i.e. higher wages, lower taxes, subsidies
Public- clean air & water, protection of individual rights

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The free rider problem- non-members get these benefits for free
The size factor: business groups smaller and more efficient
The Interest Group System

Economic Groups
 Types
of Economic Groups
 Business

Groups
the most fully organized
 Labor
Groups
 Agricultural Groups
 Professional Groups
Percentage Union Members,
by Sector and Industry
10
The Interest Group System

Citizens’ Groups

Purposive Incentives


The satisfaction of contributing to a worthy goal or purpose
Collective (Public) Goods
cannot be selectively denied to individuals
 The air we breathe = collective good


The Free-Rider Problem
individuals get the benefit without belonging to the group
 to overcome this groups have created benefits for members

The Interest Group System

Citizens’ Groups
 Types
of Citizens’ Groups
 Public-Interest
Groups- NAACP
 Single-Issue Groups- NRA
 Ideological Groups- MoveOn

concerned with a wide number of issues
13
The Interest Group System

A Special Category of Interest Group: Governments
 States,
cities, and other governmental units in the U.S.
lobby heavily
 Foreign governments are prohibited from certain
lobbying activities
 Pressure
through their embassies with paid lobbyists in
Washington
Inside Lobbying: Seeking Influence Through
Official Contacts

Acquiring Access to Officials
Policy support- Based on providing useful and persuasive
information to key officials
 Campaign Contributions- Money is key element—amount
contributed is staggering
 K Street- 20,000+ lobbyists in DC


Regulated by:


Lobbying Disclosure Act-1995 &Honest Leadership & Open
Government Act-2007
 Requires lobbyists to register and file detailed reports of
activities
“Revolving door” – Capitol Hill to K Street

Some top officials are former lobbyists
Total Spending on Lobbying of Federal Government
17
Inside Lobbying: Seeking Influence Through
Official Contacts

Lobbying Congress


Most significant resource that groups offer candidates = $$$
Lobbying Executive Agencies

Targets include
POTUS & presidential staff
 Top officials in executive agencies



“Agency capture”- over time the agencies tend to favor the industries
they are supposed to regulate-
Lobbying the Courts
Initiating lawsuits- i.e. ACLU
 Lobbying for certain judges to be appointed to the bench

Inside Lobbying: Seeking Influence Through
Official Contacts

Webs of Influence: Groups in the Policy Process
 Iron
Triangles
 Small
and informal but stable set of bureaucrats, legislators, and
lobbyists who are concerned with promoting a particular interest
Inside Lobbying: Seeking Influence Through
Official Contacts

Webs of Influence: Groups in the Policy Process
 Issue
Networks
 Informal
grouping of officials, lobbyists, and policy specialists
who are brought together temporarily by their shared interest in
a particular policy problem
 Generally more frequent but less stable than iron triangles


Members of an issue network may change as the issue develops
Once the issue is settled, the network disolves
Outside Lobbying: Seeking Influence
Through Public Pressure

Constituency Advocacy: Grassroots Lobbying
 Grass-roots
 Members
lobbying = pressure from constituents
of the public try to get lawmakers’ attention
 AARP
 largest
 Difficult
citizen group- over 30 million
to assess influence
Outside Lobbying: Seeking Influence
Through Public Pressure

Electoral Action: Votes and PAC
Money

PACs

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Tend to contribute money to
incumbents

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4000+ PACs
funneling a group’s election
contributions
contributions limited to $10,000
per candidate for each election
Most PACs associated with
business
8x as much to incumbents
Amount of influence?


Too much? vs. right to be heard
Citizens United v. FEC (2010)

1st Amendment issue
Percentage of PACS by Category
The Group System: Indispensable but Biased
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The Contribution of Groups to Self-Government: Pluralism


Serving the “public interest”?
Flaws in Pluralism: Interest-Group Liberalism and Economic
Bias

The tendency of officials to support demands of the interest
groups
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Liberal- the habit of using government to promote group interests
Neither party is “conservative” in the sense of being reluctant to use
gov. power to promote groups
Not equally representative

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Organization is an unequally distributed resource
Economic groups are the most highly organized
Nearly 2/3 of all lobbying groups are business related
The Group System: Indispensable but Biased

A Madisonian Dilemma
 Madison’s
solution to the problem of factions actually
contributes to the problem by the fragmentation of
authority among policymakers thereby providing more
groups more opportunities to get their way
 Federalist
#10- A free society must allow pursuit of self-
interest
 Checks and balances work to protect rights, but also
exaggerate influence of minorities
 Groups can wield too much influence over individual policies
or agencies
States in the Nation