INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
Slide 1
Text: America and Arizona Government for Elementary Teachers
Presentation 17: Interest Groups and Parties
Audio: Welcome to America and Arizona Government for Elementary Teachers. This is
presentation 17, "Interest Groups and Parties." This presentation looks at how people can work
together to achieve their goals and attain their political ends. In last presentation, we talked about
public opinion and political socialization and where preferences come from. We now look at
how people with like-minded ideas or similar preferences work together to be effective. Political
scientists call this "aggregating preferences." And the success or failure of a group in aggregating
their preferences and translating those preferences into policy can explain a lot of politics. In this
presentation, we'll look at interest groups first, and then political parties. And what we'll find is
that in function, they're quite similar to each other.
Slide 2
Text: Presentation Objectives
AEPA Objectives
0006 Understand various governmental systems
0013 Understand the development of political parties in the United States
AZ Social Studies Standard, Strand 3
Concept 4: Rights, Responsibilities, and Roles of Citizenship
Audio: This presentation will focus on concepts contained in the AEPA Objective 6, Understand
Various Governmental Systems and 13, Understand the Development of Political Parties in the
United States. We'll also look at Arizona Social Studies Standards, strand 3, Concept 4, the
Rights, Responsibilities and Roles of Citizenship. As usual, I recommend that you look at the
Social Studies Standard articulated by grade level document for strand 3, Civics and Government
and look at the objectives that are listed by grade level under concept 4. After the presentation,
go back and review this document and make sure that you have attained the necessary level of
competence for those objectives.
Slide 3
Text: What are Interest Groups?

Any organization that seeks to influence public policy
[Image of AARP logo] [Image of National Rifle Association logo] [Image of American Civil
Liberties Union of Ohio]
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
Audio: America has many interest groups operating within it. Indeed, one of the measures of the
health of a democracy and of a civil society in a democracy are how many interest groups can
form and the freedom that groups have to be able to form, to try to influence the public policy
process. So any group that does seek to influence that policy process can be considered as an
interest group. So the sample groups that I have on this slide are the National Rifle Association,
which many argue is one of the most powerful political interest groups in America, the AARP,
which is the American Association for Retired Persons, which is also a tremendously powerful
interest group, and the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. This also is a very active
group -- not as powerful as the other two, but is constantly engaged in the public debate.
Slide 4
Text: Impact of Interest Groups



Pluralist-Competition between groups insures that no one group dominates
Elitist-pluralism doesn’t work because it is the monied interests which have the loudest voice
Hyper-pluralism—groups are so numerous and powerful that it is impossible to make a
coherent public policy
Audio: There are a few different ideas on the impact of interest groups and whether that impact
is a positive thing for our democracy. Now the first argument is the pluralist theory which we've
discussed before in these presentations. Remember that pluralism is the notion that different
groups compete with each other for power and influence and that in a pluralist society, no one
group dominates, that the contest is a fair contest, that some groups may win more than others,
but the system is not rigged to privilege one group over another. In that competition, the
government is a referee between those groups to make sure that it is a fair contest. Now this is
contrasted with an elitist view of society that elitist view is that some groups do win more often
than others, that some groups have privileges with other groups do not have. And in our society,
that tends to equate to money. That groups that have money are able to purchase access to the
media, to politicians, to decision makers and with that access they're able to change people's
minds. They may be changing the minds of politicians, they may be using the media to change
the opinions of the public, but they're able to have a louder voice and a more influential voice
than other groups do, because of the monetary resources that they have. And so that would
suggest that we don't really have a pluralist society, rather we have an elitist society where
groups that have access to power and money are able to maintain their access to power and
money because of their power and money. Now, that sounds like a worse thing than it may be.
There is a defense for elitism actually, and that is that elitist groups tend to go to the best schools,
because their parents can afford the best education. They tend to have the connections and
networks to other powerful groups which makes them effective advocates and policy makers and
they tend to have the training and socialization to be competent leaders and managers. And so
the argument is that an elitist society runs smoothly and as long as it still holds elections so that
the, everybody else gets a say in which elite leader they're going to choose, then everybody
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benefits because the elite want the system to work because they benefit by it and so they
maintain the system and that benefits everybody else. So that's the defense of elitism. But in the
context of interest groups, the argument here is that some interest groups have an unfair
advantage in the contest of ideas with other interest groups. There is a third theory of how
interest groups impact and it is hyper-pluralism. Now just as pluralism says competition between
groups is healthy because no one group dominates, hyper-pluralism argues that that competition
actually hurts the society because the groups have become so powerful and their voices so shrill
that it is difficult, if not impossible, for the government to engage in coherent public policy. Now
this is because the groups are competing with each other to capture government, but it's also
because these groups are so well organized and so well-funded that they can block action, even if
they're not able to successfully enact action. So the argument is that any time government tries to
do something, they're guaranteed to be opposed by highly organized, highly effective groups,
and if that group is successful, and the government instead shifts in a different direction to keep
that group happy, then a different set of highly organized, highly funded groups will oppose that
action. So no matter what action the government takes, there will be groups that effectively
oppose that action. The result then of hyper-pluralism is incoherent public policy or a complete
lack of action. So these are three different views of the role that interest groups play in American
politics today. And there is strong evidence for all three of these viewpoints. And so as we
discuss interest groups, and as you look at the practice of politics around you, it would be useful
to think through these three different theories of the role of groups in society and see which are
in play.
Slide 5
Text: Why are some groups powerful?

Small groups tend to be more effective
o Small overhead
o Narrow focus
o Large groups have free riders
Audio: Let's begin by asking why some groups are more powerful than others. Why do some
groups succeed in the public policy arena and other groups fail? Why do some groups persist,
meaning they're organized over time and they become household names? Where other groups
either fail to organize or are ephemeral. They come and they go and nobody really knows why
they're there or what they're doing. If we look at why some groups are more powerful than
others, there's a couple of factors that play into an effective, powerful group. One of those is
group size. And while a larger group can often be more powerful, because it has more resources
at its disposal, smaller groups are often more effective. There's a couple reasons for this. But the
largest is the organizational cost of creating groups. When a group puts itself together, somebody
has to be willing to pay the organizational costs for the group, meaning the time to bring people
together, drafting a charter, putting materials together, contacting like-minded people; it all takes
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
time. And it also might take a little bit of money, particularly if the group's going to have a
permanent headquarters where they have a mailing address where stuff gets sent to. So the
smaller the group, the smaller those overhead costs are and that makes it easier for that group to
shift their organization or move their organization around or maintain their organization because
they don't have large overhead costs associated with that organization. Also small groups tend to
be single issue groups. They have one issue that is extremely important to them and that issue
becomes an organizing principle that determines everything else that that group does. That group
doesn't get lost on a myriad of issues or lose its effectiveness by trying to do too many things at
once. It can focus in on a particular issue, a particular policy debate and become quite effective
in that policy arena that it has narrowed itself down to. A third reason why small groups are, can
be more effective than large groups is because large groups suffer from free riders. Now a free
rider is someone who belongs to the group, benefits from the group's outcomes but contributes
nothing to the group. So for example, if I believe that clean air is a good thing, and so I want to
have clean air to breathe, and I rely on my colleagues to ride their bicycles to work to keep the
air clean and then I drive a 1972 Cadillac to work, I'm not contributing to clean air at all. My
colleagues who are riding their bicycles to work and are breathing in the blue smoke as my
Cadillac idles next to them by the light, they are contributing to clean air, but at the end of the
day, we're both breathing the same air whether I am contributing to its cleanliness or not. So
driving my '72 Cadillac makes me a free rider when it comes to clean air. Now groups have this
same problem. When someone turns, I think it's 55 these days, the AARP mails them a
membership card. So the AARP claims that everybody who's 55 and older belongs to their
group, The American Association of Retired Persons. And they work to secure health and Social
Security and other welfare benefits for older people, and they're quite effective at it. But if
someone gets a card for that, from the AARP, and never actually pays any dues or follows the
AARP's suggestions on how to vote, and yet the AARP secures benefits for old people, all old
people, then that means they're tolerating lots and lots of free riders, people who aren't
contributing to assist the AARP in its political agenda and yet benefit from the outcomes of those
struggles that the AARP is engaged in. So, the larger the group, the more likely it is to have free
riders. I'm sure you've experienced this yourself, as you've had to do group work in schools and
inevitably, someone in your group project or your group presentation doesn't carry their weight
and yet they expect to get the same grade that everyone else who actually did the work does.
That's a free rider. And small groups are able to identify free riders and either force them to
contribute to exclude from the group. The larger the group, the easier it is for a free rider to tag
along and benefit from the group. Now this discussion of small groups needs to be countered
with why large groups can be quite powerful. They may not be as effective as a small group, but
they are nevertheless powerful. And if they can have some group willing to pay the
organizational costs and therefore tolerate the free riders. And the reason that a large group is
more powerful is because in American politics, there are two currencies of power in America.
One is money and the other is votes. And if you can deliver money to the table, in the form of
advertisements or campaign contributions to assist a politician who agrees with you to be elected
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or maintain their office, having access to that kind of money with the ability to generate that kind
of large money, gets you a seat at the table. That makes your voice one that people want to listen
to, to keep you happy so that money continues to flow in. The other currency of power is votes.
If you can deliver votes, then you can command the attention of elected officials because in
America, while money is incredibly important, money cannot buy an election. And there have
been many cases of very wealthy, well-funded candidates losing because they couldn't come up
with the votes. And so, if you or your organization can promise that if your organization is kept
happy, you can deliver votes for a politician or alternatively, if a politician enacts policy that you
disagree with, then you will deliver the votes to their challenger and defeat them. If you can
deliver on that promise or threat, that also earns you a seat at the table. And the policy makers
will want to take your viewpoint into account. So a large group, if it can successfully solicit
funds and mobilize their membership to vote the way they recommend, can be tremendously
powerful. But again, because of the free rider problem, those large groups have to have
somebody willing to pay the organization costs and the overhead and tolerate the free riders that
are in that larger group. Now that might be a corporate interest who's interested in maximizing
profit or it might be an ideological interest in that people are willing to finance groups that back
their ideology. But, in the absence of someone willing to pay the organizational costs, large
groups will implode and not be effective.
Slide 6
Text: Collective Action Matrix
[Chart of collective action matrix]
Audio: Another explanation for why some groups are more powerful than other is to look at
their relative costs and benefits that are associated with their actions, and what the outcome of
the policy debate will mean for that groups members. And one way to think of this is to put down
the cost and benefits on this collective action matrix that is before you. We can think of cost is
being concentrated or defuse. If they're concentrated then that means that a particular group pays
the bulk of the cost for that policy, or subject area. If the costs are defuse, then that means that
society at large pays for the costs of that program or policy. Likewise, with benefits, if benefits
are concentrated, then that means that a particular group receives the bulk of the benefits of that
policy, and if the benefits are defuse, that means that society at large benefits from those policies.
And, we can put a matrix here of, that identify different cells of policy arenas that have different
mixes of costs and benefits. So, for example, in the cell that has concentrated costs, and
concentrated benefits, we have policies like flood insurance. Now with flood insurance, the
people who pay for flood insurance are the homeowners or businesses who actually purchase the
policy, and we're talking about government subsidized flood insurance here. The people who
benefit from flood insurance are when a flood happens, and wipes out a particular area, the
people who purchased insurance get the benefit, the people who did not purchase this insurance,
do not get the benefit, so it's a concentrated benefit. Likewise, user fees, and toll roads are in the
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same category. The Grand Canyon, for example, everybody owns the Grand Canyon, it belongs
to the people, but who actually uses the Grand Canyon? Who can actually benefit from the fact
that a Grand Canyon exists? Well, that would be people who go and visit it, who hike it or look
at it from the side. In order to do that, you have to pay a fee to get into the park, which means not
everybody benefits from the Grand Canyon, only the people who pay the fee can participate in
the joys and beauty that is the Grand Canyon. So, it's a concentrated cost and a concentrated
benefit. Now, on the other hand, we have policies that generate a concentrated cost but a defuse
benefit. These would be safety regulations, environmental regulations. In these policy arenas,
certain industries or individuals have to pay the cost of regulation. If it is an environmental
regulation, let's say carbon emissions, and the utility wants to build a coal-fired electrical power
plant, and so they're going to be pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the air, as well as other
pollutants that are generated when you burn coal. Well, we have regulations that require that
utility to place scrubbers on the smoke stacks of the generator, and those scrubbers will remove
most of the pollutants from the emissions of burning the coal, and that way fewer pollutants are
spewed into the atmosphere. Now, everybody benefits from having cleaner air, if that utility has
to put those scrubbers on, but the utility has to pay for the scrubbers, the utility pays the cost for
that regulation. Now, of course, the utility will pass that cost along to their consumers, but as the
price of electricity increases, people will use less electricity, and the overall profitability of the
electricity per watt produced will decline because of the cost associated with adhering to the
environmental regulations, so that's an example of a policy arena that's in that type of box, where
a few people pay the bulk of the cost, but society as a whole benefits. Now, we have other policy
arenas were the costs are defuse, meaning society at large pays the cost to engage in a particular
action, a policy action, but the benefits are focused on a particular population in that society. So,
an example here would be tariffs. Right now, there is, and has always been, a sugar tariff placed,
that protects the sugar beet growers in the American south. Now, as a result, Americans pay
about twice as much for sugar as the rest of the world does, because the rest of the world buys
sugar from, sugar that's produced by sugar cane in the Caribbean or Latin America or Africa. If
the world's sugar was able to be sold in the United States at the world's price, the sugar beet
growers in the United States would immediately go out of business, because they cannot
profitably compete with sugar cane sugar. So, there is a tariff placed on sugar, we force people to
sell sugar in the United States for twice as much as they sell it to everybody else. By setting that
price level, it makes it so that the sugar beet growers can grow sugar at a comparative
disadvantage, but still make enough profit to stay in business. Now, the benefits of the sugar
tariff then are concentrated, only the sugar beet growers benefit from that tariff, but the costs are
defuse, all of the Americans pay for that tariff. The estimates vary, its, you know, it depends on
how much sugar you eat, but it runs around 25 to 50 dollars a year per person, that we spend
more in sugar than we otherwise would, if there wasn't a tariff, so that's an example of a policy
domain in that cell. Finally, we have the other cell where everybody benefits from the policy and
the costs for that policy are spread out so that everybody pays those costs. National defense is the
classic example here. We all, through our taxation, pay for the Apache attack helicopter, that is
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
flying around, or the aircraft carrier that's tooling around the ocean. The costs for our national
defense infrastructure are born by everybody. Now the benefits for that infrastructure are also
benefiting everybody. We enjoy our freedoms and we enjoy our security because that aircraft
carrier is out there preventing an enemy from being tempted to harm our interests. We enjoy our
freedoms and our liberties because that Apache helicopter is flying around in the hills at
Afghanistan, blowing up terrorists before they can come to the United States and threaten us
here. So, everybody benefits from national defense, and everybody pays for it, so that's an
example of a policy domain that is in that fourth quadrant there.
Slide 7
Text: Collective Action Matrix
Interest groups that seek specific benefits or avoid specific costs are effective because members
are willing to pay organizational costs
Oppositional groups have difficulty organizing
[Chart of collective action matrix with “Diffuse” boxes circled in red]
Audio: speaker 1: Now, if we divide policies into these quadrants, what we find is that interest
groups that are in the [inaudible] policy, in the two quadrants that have the red circles around
them, tend to be highly effective interest groups. And that is because interest groups that seek
specific benefits, meaning the benefits are concentrated, or seek to avoid specific costs, meaning
the costs are concentrated, are highly effective in organizing, because their group membership
will directly benefit from that policy. They're either going to enjoy the benefit or avoid the cost.
On the other hand, groups that might organize to oppose those policies have to face all of the
organizational costs and yet they have difficulty finding a membership willing to pay those costs
because the costs are diffuse; everybody pays the costs, or maybe everybody enjoys the benefit,
and so very few people are willing to contribute to those costs or those benefits. The free rider
problem is paramount here. So if we look at the category on the bottom left, going back to the
sugar tariffs... the reason those tariffs exist is because sugar beet growers are highly motivated to
maintain those tariffs. If those tariffs go away, they go out of business because they are not
competitive with the global sugar prices. Again, it's cheaper to make sugar out of sugarcane than
it is out of sugar beets. And so they're willing to spend almost their entire profit margin in
campaign contributions in order to keep politicians, who are willing to maintain those sugar
tariffs in office. Now, in contrast, the bulk of society that pays the price of that tariff, again it
varies, but it's about $25.00 - $50.00 per person per year, most people are not aware that they're
paying that higher cost. They think that's just the normal price of sugar. And even if they become
aware of the fact that they're paying twice as much for sugar as the rest of the world, it's probably
not worth their time or their money to send a campaign contribution to the anti-sugar tariff lobby
or to devote hours of their time and walk door-to-door on weekends to try to elect officials who
will vote against that tariff. It's difficult to organize people because it's simply not worth their
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
time or money to oppose that policy, because the per-person cost for that policy is sustainable,
whereas the concentrated benefit means that the people who are in favor of those policies are
really, really motivated to get those policies to go through. Now, on the flipside are the people in
the upper right-hand, make the sale there. Those people, the groups that pay the concentrated
costs, are highly motivated to defeat those policies to prevent them from having to pay those
costs, whereas the benefit is diffuse, everybody benefits. And so individuals are not particularly
motivated to work to achieve or maintain that benefit. So we all like clean air, but the
incremental increase in pollution that might occur, if a utility plant is able to build a factory
without a scrubber, is very small, perhaps not even noticeable. And so, while we might benefit
from that factory having that scrubber, we're perhaps not motivated to contribute a large amount
of money to an environmental organization that will advocate for scrubbers. And maybe we're
not particularly motivated to go walk the streets to elect politicians who will vote for
environmentally-friendly regulations. On the other hand, the utilities are highly motivated to
contribute to groups that will focus on minimizing those regulations and minimizing the costs
that might be associated with those regulations. Another example might be gun control. This is
one explanation for why the NRA is such a powerful, effective interest group. If the public good,
being considered here, is a reduction in gun violence, where the cost of that good is a reduction
in the sales of firearms and the reduction of availability of firearms to gun enthusiasts, then it
makes sense that an interest group that is organized to oppose gun safety regulations would be
highly effective because the group that is protecting the gun manufacturers' ability to sell guns
and the gun enthusiasts' ability to have access to guns, those people are highly motivated,
whereas the general populous that may have some small marginal gain in safety, if there are
fewer guns floating around society, are not motivated to oppose that interest group in favor of
gun regulations. So, Handgun Control Incorporated is an interest group that advocates for gun
control. It is simply not a very effective group. Whereas the N.R.A., which is organized to
oppose gun control, is a highly effective group, and this thinking in terms of collective action and
concentrated costs benefits helps explain why some groups are more powerful than other groups.
Slide 8
Text: Collective Action Matrix

This means that a vocal, motivated minority will always have more influence on public
policy than a complacent majority
[Photo of protestors]
Audio: If we've combined what we've learned about small group effectiveness versus large
group effectiveness with the collective action matrix, which explains the varying motivations for
some groups versus other groups, what this tells us is that a vocal, highly-motivated minority
group will always have more influence on public policy than a complacent majority will. Now,
that may sound troubling from a democratic theory point of view, which is that the government
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should always enact or engage in the will of the majority, that it should reflect the will of the
majority. But it is consistent, though, with democratic theory, because government responds to
the public groups that seek to influence it. And if a majority becomes engaged and active, then
the government with respond to that majority. But if the majority is complacent and silent and
incapable of organizing or unwilling to organize, then that vocal minority group will have a
disproportionate impact, an impact that is larger than their numbers may suggest. And that is I
guess as it should be by democratic theory point of view, because citizens that engage the system
are effective; citizens that don't engage the system are not effective. There was a quote from
Mario Cuomo, he was the mayor of New York City in the 1980s and early 1990s. And he had a
statement that was a fairly accurate assessment of American politics. He said, "In America, we
have a system that rewards participation and punishes nonparticipation." And there's a lot of truth
to that.
Slide 9
Text: Lobbying
Provide information to policy makers to persuade them to enact favorable legislation
[Photo of people talking in a hallway]
Audio: Let's now look at the tactics or strategies that interest groups use in order to affect the
public policy debate or the policy process. The first tool that they use is that of lobbying. Now
lobbying has a very negative connotation in our culture. People don't like the notion that groups
influence our elected officials. They like to keep a romantic notion that elected officials are
following that delegate model that they're faithfully executing the will of their elected or the
trusty model where they are using their sound judgment or ideology to make their decisions.
Now both of those models do, in fact, operate. But if we remember that in a complex society and
a large nation of three hundred million people there is a lot of things going on. And the
legislators, the elected officials, whether they're in the legislator or the executive branch, they
have to make many many decisions that have long term consequences. And impact areas that
they may not be familiar with. And so the primary job of a lobbyist. The primary role that
lobbying plays is to give information to legislators and executive officials that they might not
otherwise have. A lobbyist then is not a sort of secret agent, seeking to subvert democracy, rather
it's more useful to think of lobbyist as a voice for a particular interest group. Now a lot of
lobbyist are hired guns. They'll work for which ever group will pay them the most money. But
the actual job that they engage in is to be a voice for that group. To advocate for that group. And
to educate policymakers what the effect of their policies are going to be on the group that the
lobbyist is working for. So lobbying when it is done right is a practice of persuasion. It's a skill
set that is used to persuade a policymaker to make a decision that is in line with the wishes or the
preferences of the interest group that sent the lobbyist to work on behalf of them. Now there are
things that lobbyist need to do to be able to have that kind of access, to be listened to by a
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policymaker. And that leads to some of the other strategies that we'll talk about in a few minutes
here. But an effective lobbyist is one who has a connection of some kind with the policymaker
they're talking to. So that when they pick up the phone and say hey can I speak to Representative
Smith. Representative Smith is going to take that call. And actually listen to them. So an
effective lobbyist is one who is able to maintain their credibility and their persuasive ability so
that their policymaker will listen to them and that they can have an impact on that policymaker.
Slide 10
Text: Electioneering
Help friendly politicians stay in office and defeat unfriendly politicians
[Photo of election signs outside of a building]
Audio: The next strategy or tactic is electioneering and this is because in order for an interest
group and their lobbyist to be effective, to use our other example, Representative Smith has to be
willing to pick up the phone when the phone rings. Will they listen to that lobbyist? If that policy
maker does pick up the phone and is open to hearing that interest group's point of view and
maybe enacts policy that accords with that interest group's point of view and that interest group
has an interest in allowing that elected person to stay where they are. So they're going to actively
work for the re-election of policy makers who are friendly to them and they are going to actively
work for the electoral defeat of policy makers who work in opposition to their interests. So, all of
the electioneering tactics that interest group engaged in are designed to create a situation where
when the phone rings, the policy maker will pick it up and listen to them. There's a couple of
tactics that interest groups engage in to affect the outcome of election. One of the most dominate
is to provide campaign contributions to friendly politicians. And now as we will learn in the
subsequent presentation on campaigns, it's very expensive to run an effective campaign in the
modern era. So politicians, who like their job and would like to continue in office, have to gain
access to the resources that are necessary to run an effective campaign. One source for those
resources are interest groups, who are willing to give donations to politicians who again will pick
up the phone and listen to them when they have an opinion on a policy issue. Now this aspect of
interest group lobbying is the most distasteful for everybody involved, the public doesn't like the
idea that lobbyist are buying politicians, the interest groups don't like the fact that politicians will
call them up to shake them down for contributions, and the politicians don't like having to spend
large amounts of their time running around looking for resources as oppose to doing what they
were elected to do and what they wanted to do which is attend meetings and craft policies. So,
nobody's really happy with the process we have, but nevertheless, it's a very real part of the
process and any interest group that wants to be effective, needs to keep an electioneering strategy
as one of the tools in their arsenal to effectively advocate for their policy. Now one thing to note
here is that there is a, a perception that lobbyist are buying politicians when they, they make their
campaign contributions. Some of that does occur, but it's illegal if there is a quid pro quo of this
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or that agreement between an interest group who gives money to a politician and the politician
then acts in a certain specified way, that's called bribery and it is illegal. Politician are caught
engaging in that kind of behavior or demanding bribes where they will...a politician will call an
interest group and say you need got give me x amount of money or else I will vote such and such
way and then that type, type of behavior is unethical and in many cases illegal. So the vast
majority of electioneering that occurs by interest groups is not that kind of crass quid pro quo,
buying of elections that is so roundly criticized by the public. I was speaking to a lobbyist once
who indicated that if lobbyist go around acting that way, giving campaign contributions and then
demanding a certain behavior from the people that they are giving their contributions for
have...politicians tend to avoid those people because it's only a matter of time before that
behavior will catch up to them and no politicians wants to get caught up being associated with
the that kind of a lobbyist. We only look at the Abramoff scandal of the mid 2000's to see that
lobbyist who engaged in that kind of behavior do get caught and the politicians associated with
them are punished and politicians know this so they try to stay above the table as much as
possible to avoid the stink that would come with being associated with a below the table
arrangement. So I'm defending politicians and lobbyist more than I probably should, but the
point is that electioneering is a legitimate tactic and the vast majority of electioneering that
occurs is not an unethical practice despite the public's perception to the contrary.
Slide 11
Text: Influence Public Opinion
Bypass the policy process to affect behavior directly
Also affects politicians, if they like their jobs
[Photo of simulated car crash with “Always wear your safety belt” written across the image]
[Image of American Cancer Society” logo] [image of pink ribbon]
Audio: The next strategy or tactics that interest groups use to affect the policy process is to
influence public opinion. Now this is an attempt to bypass the decision makers altogether by
altering the mass public's perception of an issue or the mass populations behaviors. So, rather
than trying to convince a policy maker to make a law to require a certain type of behavior, the
interest group will try to influence the overall population to voluntarily engage in that kind of
behavior, that they're seeking for. Now, an example of this would be the anti-smoking campaigns
that were...are continually put forth by the American Cancer Society. That campaign is not
seeking to make smoking illegal, although the American Cancer Society certainly supports
measures that make, for example, indoor smoking illegal, but that's not their tactic, their tactic is
to try to make it un-cool to smoke, to change the public's perception of smoking because as they
are successful in that mass campaign, smoking will decrease and cancers will decrease and that
can be even more effective than trying to lobby a policy maker to make cigarettes illegal or make
indoor smoking illegal. The other example I have on the slide is the seat belt safety campaigns
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
those are paid for often by insurance companies. They aren't trying to pass a law mandating seat
belt use although again they would be in favor of such a law, but what the campaigns are trying
to do is get people to voluntarily begin to wear seat belts because as their behavior changes then
the outcome changes. So there are fewer accidents or when there's accidents people do not have
as serious of injuries which means the insurance companies are able to maintain more
profitability, if they do that. Now in addition to influencing the public just to change the public's
behavior, to achieve their goals that way, sometimes interest groups will attempt to influence
public as a roundabout way of influencing politicians. So, if you're calling the politician and
Representative Smith won't answer the phone because he doesn't agree with your interest group
and so you've engaged in an election campaign and back a challenger to Representative Smith
but your challenger lost, well one thing you can do since you're not able to influence
Representative Smith, is to try to change the public's opinion of the issue you're trying to get
Representative Smith to change on. That way, if Representative Smith likes his job and the
public's attitude shifts, then Representative Smith's position on that issue might shift along with
the public attitude this would be particularly true if Representative Smith sees himself as a
delegate that wants to accurately reflect the will of the constituency, so by changing the will of
the constituency, you can change the attitude of the representative. An example here would be
the Iraq war, for several years after the war the public backed the war and politicians were very
careful to not criticize the war or least not criticize it very loudly. There were several public
awareness campaigns put forth by opponents to the war, for example, would be the Code Pink
Group that would interrupt public hearings and discussions about war and talk about why the war
was bad or the death toll for the war. The group move on dot org engaged in a fairly extensive
public campaign criticizing the Iraq war and over time and not necessary because of these
campaigns, but certainly in line with those campaigns, the public attitudes on the war did begin
to shift so that by 2006, three years after the war had been initiated, the public attitude to the war
was no longer overwhelming in favor of it and still a majority did favor of it, but that majority
was much more slim than it had been in 2003 and 2004 and as a result, politicians began to
publicly opposed the war and call for an end to the war. To the extent, that by 2008 candidates
on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat were not talking about whether or not to
continue the war, they're were talking about how best to end the war, so the politician's position
on the war shifted as the public's position on the war shifted and that's because politicians who
liked their jobs need to stay in line with public opinion. So this is why this can be an effective
strategy for an interest group is to speak directly to the public and change public opinion.
Slide 12
Text: Litigation
Last ditch resort to block policy
[Photo of court in session]
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Audio: The last tactic or strategy to discuss is that of litigation. Now litigation is...can be highly
effective strategy because if you recall the presentation on the courts, the courts are a last refuge
for a minority viewpoint because they're not subject to or vulnerable to public opinion an
unpopular position can succeed in a court where they would not be able to succeed in an
electoral setting. So, if an interest group has failed to effectively lobby Representative Smith
won't pick up the phone or is not swayed by their arguments, they have failed in their
electioneering, their challenger to Representative Smith was soundly defeated, and they have
failed in their attempts to influence public policy, the rest of society agrees with Representative
Smith, the interest group is then forced to resort to the courts to try to block Representative
Smith's actions or force policy to go against the will of the majority. Now, this is a last ditch
resort, interest groups will typically try the other strategies first, but if they fail in all those, they
will attempt the courtroom. Another reason why it's last ditch is because it's quite expensive. As
we discussed in the presentation on the court system, you have to hire attorneys, the process
takes a long time and attorneys charged by the hour and so it can rack up costs of your policy
preference quite quickly. So, unless an interest group has fairly deep pockets, it's not typically a
preferred outcome, a preferred strategy to change public policy is resort to the courts. On the
other hand because of its very expense, it's expensive for both sides, and it's time consuming for
both sides which means sometimes just threat of litigation is sufficient to get a policy maker to
change their policy. They would rather accede to the wishes of the interest group than go through
the time and expense and shear hassle of having to go through a court process to fight off that
threat by the interest group. So, groups that readily use litigation, particularly groups that have
lawyers on hand which decreases the out of pocket cost of a lawsuit can effectively use the threat
of litigation to get policy makers to adopt their policy viewpoints at the expense of sometimes
what the majority will might be, because again looking at that collective action matrix vocal
motivated minority that maybe has members who are lawyers which decreases cost to them can
easily turn to litigation whereas a policy arena that the benefits are diffuse or the costs are diffuse
may have a hard time getting enough people to donate money to pay for a legal defense and so
that vocal motivated minority group will succeed in a litigation arena where the majority will
not, simply because of the organizational cost that stand in the way of, of a complacent majority
from defending its interest. So, these are all strategies that interest groups use to affect public
policy, lobbying, electioneering, influencing public opinion and litigating and using these tools,
groups in the United States are able to advocate for their preferred policy outcome. Now, again
going back to the beginning of this presentation, it's useful to think about what that means for the
kind of society we live in. Is it a pluralist society where these groups use these tools to compete
for power? Is it an [inaudible] society where some groups have more access to these tools than
other groups do? Or is it a hyper-plural society whereby groups using these tools at their
disposal, it prevents coherent policy from actually moving forward.
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Slide 13
Text: Political Parties
[Image of Democratic Party logo] [Image of Republican Party logo]
Audio: Now when we're talking about groups that aggregate preferences, one of the most potent
groupings that exists to do that are political parties. And so we're going to move our discussion
to talk about the way political parties operate in our system. Now parties have broader policy
platforms than do single interest groups. But their overriding platform, their reason for existence
is to elect members of their party to public positions. Now in order to effectively do that,
political parties follow many of the same strategies that interest groups do.
Slide 14
Text: What are Political Parties?

Act the same as Interest groups
o Lobbying
 Provide information to policy makers to persuade them to enact favorable
legislation
o Electioneering
 Help friendly politicians stay in office and defeat unfriendly politicians
o Influence Public Opinion
 Bypass the policy process to affect behavior directly
 Also affects politicians, if they like their jobs
o Litigation
 Last ditch resort to block policy
Audio: Like interest groups; parties lobby, they lobby decision makers, parties have vested
interest in maintaining their brand, what their brand means, and so party leaders will try to get
elected officials to follow the parties lead and vote in ways that are consistent with the party's
principles so that the party brand is meaningful to the voters. They also engage in electioneering
that is their explicit goal as a party is to elect members of their party and oppose members of the
opposite party. They attempt to influence public opinion; again there is a branding issue here,
party's attempt to get the public to side with them to think of themselves as belonging to their
party. What are you? Well, I'm a Republican, if you say that then the Republican Party has
successfully branded their image so that you associate your values, attitudes and beliefs with that
of this political party, so the parties attempt to influence public opinion. Finally parties also
litigate, parties will sue members of the other party, they sue elected officials to try to influence
the outcome of a political struggle, perhaps they will be suing Secretary of State to prevent a
ballot measures from being put on the ballot or they are suing to disqualify a candidate because
the voters signatures are not valid or maybe as was the case 2000, they can take a suit all the way
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to the Supreme Court to decide the outcome of an election when it is in doubt. So, parties engage
in the same strategies to succeed and achieve their ends that interest groups do.
Slide 15
Text: What are Political Parties?


One additional activity
o Lobbying
 Provide information to policy makers to persuade them to enact favorable
legislation
o Electioneering
 Help friendly politicians stay in office and defeat unfriendly politicians
o Influence Public Opinion
 Bypass the policy process to affect behavior directly
 Also affects politicians, if they like their jobs
o Litigation
 Last ditch resort to block policy
Select and Support Candidates for election
Audio: There is one strategy that makes political parties stand out from interest groups, and that
is the political parties select and support candidates for election. They put someone forward as a
candidate, and this is what distinguishes a party from other groups in our society. Now, any time
a group puts a candidate forward for election, they then cross a line and transform from an
interest group into a political party. Many thought that in the 1990s the Christian Coalition would
do this. That was a group that - it was an interest group that was attempting to influence the
outcomes of elections to promote their policy preferences, and they were not particularly
satisfied with the establishment Republican Party, and in local races in some parts of the South,
candidates began to run as a Christian Coalition candidate, not a Republican or Democrat
candidate. So it looked as if that group might transition into a separate political party, but it
didn't. The Republican Party ended up absorbing that group. Now, it's an open question right
now whether the Tea Parties will do this. The Tea Party Movement in the summer of 2010, as
I'm recording this presentation, seems to be quite strong, has a lot of followers, is endorsing
candidates but has not yet put a candidate forward as a Tea Party candidate. Typically they are
Republican candidates who are running with Tea Party endorsement. So until the Tea Part
organizes itself and puts forward a candidate under their name, it is best to view the Tea Party as
an interest group not a political party.
Slide 16
Text: What do parties do?
[Black and white drawing of men arguing in front of colonial building]
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
Audio: There is a lot of discussion in our society over the role that political parties and
partisanship in general plays in the public discourse and the policy debates, and there's a lot of
criticism over the role that parties play. The feeling is that parties are too acrimonious, that
partisanship is too severe, and the divide between the parties is too steep to enable coherent
rational policy discussion. About a third of the electorate is registered as independent, meaning
they have chosen not to join either of the two major political parties but still registered to vote.
That is a measure of the frustration and dissatisfaction with the two political parties. Now it's
useful, then, when thinking about political parties to make a list of what parties actually do and
separate that from what parties do not. Because sometimes people have an unrealistic expectation
about what political parties are supposed to be doing, and then when parties don't meet up to
those expectations, people become disillusioned by them. So let's look at what parties actually
do, what role they play in our electoral system.
Slide 17
Text: Why have parties?
Aggregate Preferences
Like minded folds getting together to turn their preferences into policy
[Photo of crowd at a protest]
Audio: Probably the most important role that parties play is to aggregate preferences. Again, this
is a term that political scientists use to mean people who have similar preferences band together
because when those preferences are collected together or aggregated, they can have a larger
impact on the policy process, and those individuals could [inaudible]. So to put it in normal
English, parties are when like-minded folks get together to turn their preferences into policy.
Again, to quote the New York Mayor Mario Cuomo, we live in a system that rewards
participation and punishes non-participation. By participation, the most effective way to engage
in participation is to engage in collective participation so that your voice is one of many that are
working towards a common goal. If your voice is a solitary voice, and you're working in
isolation, the odds of success are remote, if not impossible. So parties are a way for people who
agree with each other to coordinate their actions and elect like-minded people so that those
representatives will engage in policy that you agree with.
Slide 18
Text: Why have parties?
Give Candidates the ability to govern
The party acts as a government in opposition, enables winning candidates to quickly fill
positions
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
[Photo of 2008 transition team for Missouri’s new governor]
Audio: Another important role that parties play is to give candidates the ability to govern.
Political scientists refer to the party in the electorate and the party in government as a way to
distinguish between two different roles that parties play, but what that means is that when a party
takes power, that party has to fill lots of positions. If you recall the discussion of patronage, when
we talked about the executive branch, the president or the governor or even the Congressional
leadership has to fill positions of authority in government to, and they would like to put people in
that position of authority that have similar viewpoints. And so when they're elected, they have to
hire all those people. When they're not elected, when the party is out of power, that party
functions as a government in opposition, so to speak. So all of the component and qualified
people who could work in government instead are outside of government. They probably are
going to be criticizing what government's doing, but those people don't just go away. They have
to have the ability to be quickly mobilized should the party gain power. An example of this
would be when Janet Napolitano resigned her position as governor to take a position as the
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security of the Obama administration, and when she
did that, she took several of her trusted advisors with her to have government jobs in
Washington, but beyond those people, she had filled the State of Arizona with her political
appointees. People who were loyal to her, and who were not loyal to the new governor. So when
Jan Brewer, who was Secretary of State, became governor, the control of state government
shifted from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. Now the new Governor Brewer has
to hire a whole bunch of people in a short period of time. That there wasn't, Jan Brewer did not
campaign to be governor. So she did not draw up who she wanted to work in the various
executive offices prior to the election of 2008, and, yet, when Governor Napolitano left, the new
Governor Brewer had just a matter of weeks to identify and hire lots and lots of people to be put
in the executive branch. Well, when that happens, the governor doesn't just put an ad out on
monster dot com saying I need a new head of the department of economic security. What
happens is the party facilitates this process by keeping track of the people who worked in state
office last time a Republican controlled the government, or people who are party loyalists who
have worked for campaigns and have written opinion essays and maybe they've worked on
commissions or the governors appointed them to be on a task force. All those people are known
to the party, and the party then can deliver those names to a transition team that finds people to
hire. So the party label becomes a way for a newly-elected person to identify people who are
qualified for a job who are likely to have similar political viewpoints as the politician who's
hiring them because they belong to the same party. So the organization of the political party and
the identification of people into one party or another gives the candidates the ability to govern, to
populate those appointed positions with qualified people who can be reasonably relied upon to
follow the leadership and the direction that that elected official wants to take.
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Slide 19
Text: Why have parties?
Provide Information to Voters
They keep track of the minutia, educate the public on the important issues
[Photo of voter booth with people inside]
Audio: The next role that parties play is to provide information to voters, and this is an important
role because voters need to be given information on which candidate stands for what particular
issue or what a candidate's overall philosophy is towards the role of government and taxation and
government services, things of that nature. And so when a citizen goes into a voting booth,
they're going to be faced with making a decision on multiple candidates. Now perhaps they paid
close attention to the presidential race or the governor's race or maybe the Senate race. They
might know who their Congressional representative is and who the challenger is, but as they
move down the ballot, they're going to come to more and more offices that they don't really
understand what that office does or who the people are that are competing for that office. They
may not have attended a debate on the school board or city council, or in Arizona's case the mine
inspector, and they may not know what the policy differences are between the candidates.
Nevertheless, the person can use party label as an information shortcut to make an educated
guess as to what kinds of policies that person might do in that office based on their party label.
So parties provide that information shortcut to voters. In addition, they also provide a wealth of
information to people who are interested in keeping track of the details, who want to educate
themselves on the various platform positions of the state's mine inspector race. Where would you
go to find that information? Well, political parties are happy to provide that information on what
their candidate will do if elected, and then [inaudible] voters with a negative image of what the
opposite party will do if elected. So while voters tend to pay attention to politics on a periodic
basis, you know, for a few weeks before each election, the political parties keep track of what's
going on in the political arena all the time. And so the public can go to the political party to find
out what the voting record was of a particular individual and whether on the whole that voting
record corresponds with the ideological preferences of the voter. So this is a useful function that
parties give to the American electorate.
Slide 20
Text: Why have parties?
Provide a way to maintain the election machine between elections
Most important function, historic origin
[Image of black and white advertisement for Whig meeting]
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
Audio: Finally, another role that parties play is to provide a way to maintain the election
machine between elections, and this is actually why we have political parties in the first place. If
a party can't do this, it is doomed to electoral defeat. The reason we have political parties is
because the first generation of Americans had a few key debates. Some of them wanted a strong
central government. Others wanted more states' rights. Some of them wanted a central bank.
Others did not want a central bank. Some wanted to ally with England in the super power
struggle. Others wanted to ally with France in that super power struggle. And these groups that
opposed, had oppositional opinions about what direction the country ought to take centered,
rallied around the personalities of Adams and Jefferson, and these two men competed with each
other for power, and the people who supported them competed for power at the state levels as
well as the presidential level. They competed to elect people to Congress that would back their
side and not the other. They competed to elect governors who would back their side and not the
other, and these groups coalesced into what became known as the Whigs and the Democratic
Republicans. It's simply difficult to run an election. You need a lot of volunteers. You need a lot
of people with deep pockets who are willing to make contributions. You need a lot of people
who are actually going to show up and vote on Election Day. Now it's possible for an
independent person to find and recruit and mobilize enough of those people to make a go at an
election, but two years later, you're going to need to do the exact same thing, and it's
cumbersome to have to start over trying to locate, recruit, and motivate those people to help win
an election. What is a much more efficient way to go about it is to maintain a list of who those
people are, and group those people into a common organization, again, an aggregated preference
where those people, those like-minded folks will want to associate with one another and will
actively work for each other's benefit. This is why political parties formed with the first
generation of Americans, and it's one of the more fundamental roles that political parties still
play today.
Slide 21
Text: What don’t they Do? Are they worth the trouble?

Build Consensus
o Good policy often requires compromise
o Compromise takes campaign issues away from parties and candidates
o The party needs to stand FOR something and Against something
o Expect gridlock in congress before an election
[Photo of crowd, with people arguing]
Audio: So those are the things that parties do, let's now turn out to attention to things that parties
do not do, things that we should not expect from political parties. The first of these is to build
consensus, parties are not in the business of crafting good public policy. Individual politicians
may want to do that and the public may want to do that, but a political party doesn't benefit from
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INTEREST GROUPS AND PARTIES
a compromise outcome that leads to good public policy. Often coherent policy requires
compromise from two sides, if one side sticks its heels in and refuses to budge, that frequently
prevents policy from moving forward. It's difficult to get the votes necessary to gain passage of a
particular policy for example, unless both sides are willing to give in a little on their demands.
They can then having both got...given in a little bit, they can find some middle ground policy that
neither is particularly satisfied with, but both can live with. That type of policy is able to garner
support and move forward. Now while compromise may make good policy, it makes terrible
politics because a political party has to stand for something, it has to be against something, if a
party compromises or is willing to encourage compromise then it's difficult for that political
party to use that issue in a future election. For example, right now immigration is a very hotly
contested political situation in Arizona where Republican candidates tend to favor a strict
enforcement of the border and in efforts to normalize a presence or legalize the presence of
immigrants is decried as amnesty. On the other side, Democrats tend to favor some
comprehensive solution that legalizes the status in some way of the illegal immigrant and
characterizes the efforts to deport or police the border as racist or xenophobic. Now from those
two sort of extreme positions, it's difficult to come up with a coherent policy that...it would
actually work in either extreme case. If there was compromise outcome where there was a
solution that solidified border enforcement that had a penalty for those who had broken the law
by entering the country illegally but provided some mechanism for labor and industry to meet
their labor needs and have a legal pathway for people for...foreigners to come into this country to
meet those labor needs, that middle road solution might solve the illegal immigrant problem. So
let's say that happens and [inaudible] there is no illegal immigrant problem, so now what issue is
the Republican or Democratic parties going to run on, they cannot no longer criticize the other
party or promote their party on the issue of illegal immigration. They have to find some other
policy domain that there still disagreement in order to convince voters to vote for them, to
distinguished their brand from the other brand, there has to be some policy areas that there are
clear differences on. And so the point of all of this is that political parties aren't interested in
building consensus and that if we want to find consensus, we need to look some place other than
the partisan advocates for their parties. This is another explanation for why Congress rarely gets
substantive work done in the months before an election or some say even in the year before an
election because the politicians of either side, Republican or Democratic can't afford to
compromise or make out reach towards the other party right before an election, because if they
do so, then the other political party is able to say that there's no reason to vote for that person, so
you can expect gridlock in Congress before an election and you can expect partisanship to
prevent compromise from occurring.
Slide 22
Text: What don’t they Do? Are they worth the trouble?
Have the national interest paramount
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Parties exist to further their fortunes
May or may not coincide with the national interest
[Image of anti-Republican propaganda] [Image of anti-Democratic propaganda]
Audio: Another thing that we cannot expect is for a political party to have national interest
paramount. Remember, the job of a political party is to elect candidates. It is no the job of a
political party to protect the nation. There are times when a partisan interest will run counter to
the national interest. Not always, and In fact, parties have to be careful to promote the national
interest, particularly when they are in power because if they sacrifice the national interest
through their actions, then that will destroy the brand that is that political party because voters
will no longer support them. But when the interests of the party and the interest of the nation do
not coincide, then it is unreasonable to expect the political party to sacrifice its partisan benefits
in the name of benefiting the country. That very rarely occurs. What is much more often the case
is that the political parties will pursue their partisan interests even when the country may be
damaged by doing so. The slides that I show, or the pictures on the slide are illustrations of how
partisan activists within both of the major political parties are accusing the other political party
of treason, that they're saying that their political agenda has actually sacrificed the national
interests of the country. And I include both because both parties are accused by the other party of
doing this. But the point I'm trying to make is that we should not expect a political party to act
other than a self-interested actor, and that self-interest for the party, that the partisan interest may
or may not coincide with the national interest.
Slide 23
Text: What don’t they Do? Are they worth the trouble?
Provide unbiased information
Parties are election machines, not educational institutions
[Screenshot of Arizona Democratic Party website with ad against Governor Jan Brewer]
Audio: The next thing that parties do not do is provide unbiased information. While parties
perform a necessary and useful role in providing information to voters, that information is
skewed to serve one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to elect members of their party to
public office. Never forget that that is the only reason political parties exist, is to elect members
of their party to public office. So for example, the picture on this slide is a screenshot from the
Arizona Democratic party, and it is providing information to the voters on Governor Brewer.
Now the picture of Governor Brewer there is a pretty unflattering picture. It's in black and white,
her facial expression is showing disdain, or I don't know, perhaps she ate something bad that day.
It's not a very flattering picture. The Democrats have chosen that picture, and that quote, in order
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to portray Governor Brewer in the worst possible light. Again, the objective here is not to
provide unbiased information, it is to elect a Democrat to the office of Governor.
Slide 24
Text: What don’t they Do? Are they worth the trouble?
Provide unbiased information
Parties are election machines, not educational institutions
[Screenshot of Arizona Republican Party website with ad against President Barack Obama]
Audio: Not to be outdone, here is a screen shot from the Arizona Republican party, taken on the
same day. And you see that their home page has a picture of President Obama, again in black and
white, but cropped in such a ways with a rather bizarre background around him to give a sort of
visual impression of this sinister, other worldly forest. It's evoking the Wizard of Oz motif, so
that the President is standing behind the machine belching fire. Again, a pretty unflattering view
of our nation's President, and this is because of a calculation that the Arizona Republican party
has made, that rather than telling people why they should vote for Governor Brewer, or even
against Goddard, the Democratic opponent, what they're trying to do is get their viewers to vote
against President Obama, by electing Republicans in national, state, and local office. So the point
here is that parties are election machines, not educational institutions, that if you want unbiased
information about candidates or policies, you need to look elsewhere, from other than a political
party. Or another strategy is to look at both political parties, expose yourself to the bias in both
directions, and by doing so you can attempt to triangulate between those two biased positions to
find an accurate picture of what's actually going on.
Slide 25
Text: Why Two parties?

System is set up to perpetuate itself
o Who makes election rules?
[Photo of presidential debate between Bill Clinton and George Bush, Sr.]
Audio: Let's turn our attention now to why we only have two political parties. We've talked
about the role the parties play and the things that we can't -- or shouldn't expect from political
parties but why are there only two of them? If you recall, about a third of the electorate register
as independents. So they're not particularly excited about either of the two major political parties.
It would stand to reason that with a full third of the electorate not interested that another political
party or combination of political parties should arise to capture that electorate that is dissatisfied.
And maybe there are lots of people in both the Republican and the Democratic party that aren't
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particularly keen on those parties but feel they have no alternative. And so there's even a larger
group of Americans that might join another political party should a viable party be present. So
why is that not the case? Why are there just the two parties? Well, the first answer is that the
system, the two party system is set up to perpetuate itself. If you ask yourself who makes the
rules for ballot access, for deciding who gets federal campaign funding, for deciding who gets to
attend debates, for deciding how to register as a political party in the first place, where do those
rules come from? Well, they're made by state legislatures. State runs elections in America. Who
controls the state legislatures? Well, the Republican and Democratic parties control those state
legislatures. Who is the opposition party, the minority group and in those legislatures? Again, it's
the Democratic or Republican parties. And so those two parties together, are the ones who make
all the rules. And so it stands to reason that the rules are stacked against third parties candidates.
The picture on this slide is the 1992 Presidential Debate with Bill Clinton, George Bush and
that's Ross Perot in the background there. That 1992 debate was the last time that a third party
candidate was afforded the privilege of debating on the same stage with the other two parties,
that was 20 years ago. So why is that? And how have the rules been rigged to prevent third party
candidates from gaining any traction?
Slide 26
Text: 3rd party Barriers
Ballout rules
Winner-take-all system
Congressional rules
[Image of ballot template]
Audio: Some examples of some of the barriers that the rules put in place are the ballot rules.
That means that -- what are the requirements that need to be met in order for a candidate's name
to be placed on the ballot? Now, there are some things like deadlines that have to be met. That
any party would have to meet. But there are other requirements such as voter signatures. A
minimal amount of voter signatures that have to be met. Have to be turned in in order for that
candidate's name to be placed on the ballot. Well, it's fairly easy for the two political parties to
generate that many signatures to get on the ballot. It's much more difficult for third party or
minor party to go out and get the number of signatures. Now, the number of signatures required
varies from state to state as the ballot rules, again, are determined by state legislatures. In some
states if you were on the ballot the previous election and had, you know, some minimal vote -10 percent, 5 percent of the vote. Then that party's candidate is automatically allowed to be
placed on the next ballot. Again, an -- a situation, the privileges, the two existing parties and puts
a barrier to a third party. Now, another rule that is a barrier is the structure of the way elections
are done in America. We have a winner-take-all system. Meaning we elect people on a plurality
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vote, not just a majority vote. So if you have three candidates, and they're running to represent a
state and one candidate gets -- I'm talking in particular about presidential elections and the
electoral college here. The winner-take-all system. One presidential candidate gets 35 percent of
the vote. Another candidate gets 25 percent of the vote. And the third candidate gets 30 percent
of the vote. In that election, the candidate that got the 35 percent of the vote would get all of the
electoral votes for that state. Even though they only got 35 percent of the vote. That's because in
a plurality system, the person who gets the most vote is the one who wins the race. A majority
system would require a runoff between candidates until somebody got 50 percent plus one or a
majority. Our presidential elections are a plurality system. And in all but one state are winnertake-all systems. So that makes it so that, even if a third party does a respectable showing and
garners a fourth of the vote, they come away from that contest with nothing. And so it's difficult
to gain momentum for that party. The single-member district system also is a barrier. Because
when we elect members of Congress, each district elects one person. And those 435 separate
individual elections determine the composition of the federal congress. Parliamentary systems,
systems such as are in most of the world and in Europe in particular. People have one nationwide
election for their congress. And each party gets the number of seats in congress that corresponds
to the percentage of the vote they received. So for example, in the United States. If the
Republican candidate in a district gets 40 percent of the vote. And a Democrat gets 30 percent of
the vote. And a, let's say, a Green Party candidate gets 25 percent of the vote. Then the
Republican in -- because it's a plurality system. The Republican wins the election at 40 percent.
And the Republican goes to Congress to represent that district. That contest then repeats itself
435 time around the country. And Republicans go to Congress. Democrats go to Congress. But
in no single district do the Green Party get a plurality. Because they're getting 25, 30 percent in
each district. And so they're coming in second or third throughout the whole country. And they
end up sending nobody to Congress. Now, on the other hand, if we had a proportional system
and there was a nationwide election. And the Republicans got 40 percent. The Democrats got 35
percent. And the Green Party got 25 percent. Then that would mean that the Green Party would
be allotted 25 percent of the seats in Congress. Which would be 108 or 109 seats. Well, the
Green Party would be delighted to send 108 people to Congress. But because of our winnertakes-all and single-member district system, the Green Party can win 25 percent of the electorate
and send nobody to Congress. The final rule-based barrier here are rules within Congress itself.
And if you recall the way Congress is organized is the majority party determines who gets to go
to what committees. They determine who the chairs of those committees are going to be. The
majority party determines what bills will be heard. What bills are assigned. What committees.
The majority party runs everything in Congress, in the House, and the Senate. Minority parties
have very little influence or power in the Congress. Now, if a third-party candidate went in, they
would have even less power than the minority party does. Because they would only have a
handful of seats. Which means they would never achieve a leadership position in Congress. They
would never be able to determine what committees they wanted to sit on. They would constantly
be at the whim of the majority party for their committee assignments. Which would make it very
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difficult for them to have any impact on legislation even if they made it to Congress. So these
rules that are in place create serious barriers to the electoral success of a third or minor party.
Slide 27
Text: Co-option

Parties cop-opt successful movement to prevent losing ground to them
o Leadership
o Issue position
[Photo of Ralph Nader at a podium] [Photo of Ralph Nader speaking to a crowd]
Audio: Now for this reason, people are reluctant to vote for third parties because they know that
if they vote for those third party candidates that they may be throwing their vote away. And so
the wasted vote syndrome prevents people who might actually support the ideals the party is
promoting to vote for one of the two main party candidates instead. Now even when a third party
gets itself organized and convinces voters to vote for them, they actually have a hard time
surviving because if a third party is able to mobilize a large amount of the electorate, then that
draws the attention of the two main parties. Remember that I said there's two currencies in
American politics, money and votes. A minor party can gain power over policy by demonstrating
that it can mobilize votes so the Green Party, represented by Ralph Nader here on the slide, was
able to gather enough votes, between 5 and 7% of the votes to sway the 2000 election and result
in George Bush being elected, rather than Al Gore. Now that garnered the attention of the
Democratic Party because they don't like losing elections, it's not the point of a political party but
they were able to mobilize around 5 to 7% of the American public. So what has typically
happened in the past and is occurring now with the Democrats and the Green Party, is that as a
third party demonstrates its electoral success that the two major parties move in to coopt those
positions, to take those policy positions and adopt them as their own so that the activists in the
third party can look at the main parties who are adopting their same policies and jump ship and
go back to the main party. So the Democratic party worked after 2000, to adopt a much more
pro-environmental stance than had under Bill Clinton's presidency. As a result, many of those
who voted for the Green Party in 2000 voted for the Democratic Party in 2004 and 2008. A
similar type of situation is happening with the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party has not
formed a third party but as shown in the slide underneath -- the second slide on this frame, they
are able to mobilize large groups of people around the country. And so the Republican Party is
taking aims to coopt that movement into their own party. And what you're seeing in this picture
is a Republican legislator addressing a Tea Party rally in an attempt to garner and take advantage
of that mobilization. So major parties coop successful movements to prevent losing ground to
them. They offer leadership positions to the members of the third party and they adopt their issue
positions. Another example from history would be the Progressive Era. The Progressive
Movement was actually forming its own political party and they were achieving considerable
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success at the state and local level. And so the Democratic Party co-opted the progressive agenda
and as a result, all of those progressive activists became part of the Democratic Party and that
helps explain how the Democratic Party overtook the Republican Party in Congress in the late
1800s. So if a third party wants to survive, it needs to not only be successful electorally. But
once it’s proved its success and its viability as a real movement, it has to resist cooptation by the
two major parties.
Slide 28
Text: Cross-Cutting Issue

Cross-cutting cleavage creates opportunity for 3rd party to gain followers
[Chart demonstrating Reinforcing Cleavage Gun Control] [Chart demonstrating Cross-cutting
Cleavage Entitlement Reform]
Audio: Now, there is one situation where third parties have an opportunity, a narrow window, to
seize electoral success while avoiding co-optation, and become a major political party. And that
is when there is a crosscutting issue. And what I mean by that is an issue that does not neatly fall
along the lines of the existing political parties. The examples that I have here on the slide is
reinforcing versus a crosscutting, a division or cleavage in society. A reinforcing cleavage is that
of gun control. There are anti-gun control democrats. And there are pro-gun control republicans.
But by and large, democrats tend to be more in favor of gun control. And republicans tend to be
against gun control. So that position on gun control has a reinforcing effect. So the NRA gives
the vast majority of its campaign contributions to Republicans. And that issue reinforces the
partisan division. Now, we can contrast that with the current desires for entitlement reform. Now,
entitlements are government programs that you qualify for by your condition. So when you're
age 65, you're eligible to Social Security. That's an entitlement. So Social Security, Medicare,
Medicaid, Pell grants. Those are entitlement programs. Now, there are many people who are
concerned with the state of the national budget. Who argue that our entitlement spending is
bankrupting the nation. And they advocate for entitlement reform. Now, republicans and
democrats who advocate for entitlement reform may have different proposals for how to reform
those entitlements. But they agree that entitlement reform needs to happen. At the same time,
there are Republicans and democrats who will resist entitlement reform at all cost. So
partisanship is not an accurate predictor of one's position on entitlement reform. So entitlement
reform is then a crosscutting issue. Your position on that doesn't necessarily correlate to your
membership in a political party. This then would create a possibility of a third political party.
Let's see, the Entitlement Reform Party, to make one up. And that Entitlement Reform Party,
were it to be successful, would be able to get both democrats and republicans who are in favor
for entitlement reform to side with that party. Whereas, the democrats and republicans who are
opposed to entitlement reform will not be on the same party. They'll -- democrats will vote for a
democratic candidate. Republicans will vote for a republican candidate. And the pro-reform
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democrats and republicans will vote for the Reform Party. Which would enable the Reform Party
to actually win the election. Now, this has happened once in our country's history. And that was
the issue of slavery. Slavery was a crosscutting issue. The Whig Party sought to avoid a
discussion of slavery because it was so divisive. And the Democratic Party was divided.
Northern democrats were against slavery. And Southern democrats were in favor of it. And so
neither party was united on this issue of slavery. So a new party formed, the Republican Party.
And the Republican Party was organized to combat the twin evils of slavery and polygamy, was
its original platform. And it then sprung to the scene, and the Whigs all joined the Republican
Party and the Northern democrats voted for the Republican Party. The Abolitionists voted for the
Republican Party. So the only people who voted for the democratic candidate were the Southern
democrats. So by exploiting that crosscutting issue, the Republican Party defeated both the Whig
Party and the Democratic Party and seized power. And as a result, the Whig Party completely
ceased to exist. Because it was not seen as relevant to the issues of the day once the Civil War
broke out. The last major third-party movement in our country was when Ross Perot in that '92
election came to the scene. And the crosscutting issue there was balancing the budget. Neither
party was doing anything to balance the budget. And so Ross Perot went on Larry King Live at
CNN with a bunch of charts and graphs. And discussed to the American people the danger the of
the budget situation. And that crosscutting issue of balancing the budget became so popular, it
launched Ross Perot into a viable Presidential bid. As a result, both parties adopted balancing the
budget into their platforms. And so Ross Perot's party was not able to sustain itself as a
crosscutting issue because the two political parties co-opted that issue.
Slide 29
Text: Conclusion
[Image of Democratic Party logo] [Image of Republican Party logo]
Audio: So what we've learned then is that individuals will aggregate their preferences as a way
to be more effective in the political arena and that as they advocate those preferences and form
groups, those groups can then engage the policy process to effectively bring about policy change.
Political parties as organized groups work to advocate their party preferences and to elect
members of their party to office. They perform some essential functions in our electoral
environment while they're doing that and there's some things that parties don't do that we
shouldn't expect them to do. Finally, we talked about why we have a two party system and some
of the very real barriers that are in place for third party candidates. Now there are sources that
you can go to find out about candidates and find out about parties and those will be located in
your textbook. The point to consider with interest groups and political parties is to not expect
them to be unbiased, that they are actors on the political arena pursuing their own electoral
agenda and it's important to take that agenda into account as you seek information from them.
Slide 30
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Text: This presentation is courtesy of Brian Dille, Professor of political science at Mesa
Community College.
[Photo of Brian Dille]
Audio: This presentation is courtesy of Brian Dille. I am the speaker, and I'm professor of
political science at Mesa Community College, a college of the Maricopa Community College
District in Mesa, Arizona. I hope you've enjoyed this presentation.
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