Fluent Essays

It is an open book assignment; I should use 2-4 sources from the core reading or recommended reading or the lecture, however I am not allowed to use any source from outside. Also, no need for in text citations.We are advised to write a thesis statement that is one sentence long as our introduction and a one sentence conclusion. As in essays, you should make an argument, define concepts, refer to case studies and research to substantiate your argument, and provide critical analysis. You are showing the skills required for ‘critical analysis’ when you recognize the complexity of key concepts and provide evidence for your ideas and interpretations.Recommended reading:https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/08/09/how-interest-groups-inform-policymakers-about-what-the-public-wants/ core_reading___read_pp._247_249_and_256_260__and_read_p260_to_the_end_if_you_are_keen_on_learnign_about_social_movements__of_chapter____groups_core_reading___interests_and_movements_____chapter_11_..pdf exam_format.pptx lecture___interest_groups.pptx Unformatted Attachment Preview CHAPTER 11 Groups, Interests and Movements ‘Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.’ N A P O L E O N , Maxims Copyright © 2013. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. PREVIEW KEY ISSUES Patterns of political interaction were transformed in the twentieth century by the growing prominence of organized groups and interests. Indeed, in the 1950s and 1960s, at the high point of enthusiasm about ‘group politics’, it was widely asserted that business interests, trade unions, farm lobbies and the like had displaced assemblies and parties as the key political actors. The interest group universe was further expanded, particularly from the 1960s onwards, by the growth of single-issue protest groups taking up causes ranging from consumer protection to animal rights and from sexual equality to environmental protection. Such groups were often associated with broader social movements (the women’s movement, the civil-rights movement, the green movement and so on) and were characterized by the adoption of new styles of activism and campaigning, sometimes termed ‘new politics’. Considerable debate, nevertheless, surrounds the nature and significance of groups, interests and movements, especially in relation to their impact on the democratic process. Groups come in all shapes and sizes, and carry out a wide range of functions, being, for instance, agents of citizen empowerment as well as cogs within the machinery of government. There is particular disagreement about political implications of group politics. While some believe that organized groups serve to distribute political power more widely and evenly in society, others argue that groups empower the already powerful and subvert the public interest. These issues are related to questions about how groups exert influence and the factors that allow them to exert political influence. Finally, so-called ‘new’ social movements have been both praised for stimulating new forms of decentralized political engagement and criticized for encouraging people to abandon the formal representative process.       What are interest groups, and what different forms do they take? What have been the major theories of group politics? Do groups help or hinder democracy and effective government? How do interest groups exert influence? What determines the success or failure of interest groups? Why have new social movements emerged, and what is their broader significance? Heywood, Andrew. Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1812814. Created from kcl on 2020-05-21 09:42:23. GROUPS, INTERESTS AND MOVEMENTS 245 Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59) French politician, political theorist and historian. Following the July Revolution of 1830 in France, Tocqueville visited the USA, ostensibly to study its penal system. This resulted in his epic two-volume Democracy in America (1835/40), which developed an ambivalent critique of US democracy with its equality of opportunity, but warned against the ‘tyranny of the majority’. His political career was ended by Louis Napoleon’s coup in 1849, leaving him free to devote his time to historical work such as The Old Regime and the French Revolution ([1856] 1947). A friend and correspondent of J. S. Mill, de Tocqueville’s writings reflect a highly ambiguous attitude to the advance of political democracy. His ideas have influenced both liberal and conservative theorists, as well as academic sociologists. Copyright © 2013. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. GROUP POLITICS  Cleavage: A social division that creates a collective identity on both sides of the divide.  Association: A group formed by voluntary action, reflecting a recognition of shared interests or common concerns. Interest groups (see p. 247), like political parties (see p. 222), constitute one of the major linkages between government and the governed in modern societies. In some respects, their origins parallel those of parties. They were the children of a new age of representativegovernment and came into existence to articulate the increasingly complex divisions and cleavages of an emerging industrial society. While political parties, concerned with winning elections, sought to build coalitions of support and broaden their appeal, interest groups usually staked out a more distinct and clear-cut position, in accordance with the particular aspirations or values of the people they represented. It is difficult to identify the earliest such group. Some groups predated the age of representative government; for example, the Abolition Society, which was founded in Britain in 1787 to oppose the slave trade. The Anti-Corn Law League, established in 1839, is often seen as the model for later UK groups, in that it was set up with the specific purpose of exerting pressure on government. After visiting the USA in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville reported that what he called association had already become a ‘powerful instrument of action’. Young Italy, set up in 1831 by the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini (see p. 116), became the model for sister nationalist organizations that later sprang up throughout Europe. Similarly, the Society for Women’s Rights, founded in France in 1866, stimulated the formation of a worldwide women’s suffrage movement. By the end of the nineteenth century powerful farming and business interests operated in most industrial societies, alongside a growing trade-union movement. However, most of the interest groups currently in existence are of much more recent origin. They are, in the main, a product of the explosion in pressure and protest politics that has occurred since the 1960s. As such they may be part of a broader process that has seen the decline of political parties and a growing emphasis on organized groups and social movements (see p. 260) as agents of mobilization and representation. Heywood, Andrew. Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1812814. Created from kcl on 2020-05-21 09:42:23. 246 POLITICS Types of group The task of defining and classifying groups is fraught with danger, given the imprecise nature of groups and their multiplicity of forms. Are we, for instance, concerned with groups or with interests? In other words, do we only recognize groups as associations that have a certain level of cohesion and organization, or merely as collections of people who happen to share the same interest but may lack consciousness of the fact? Similarly, are interest groups only concerned with selfish andmaterial interests, or may they also pursue broader causes or public goals? There is also the difficult issue of the relationship between interest groups and government. Are interest groups always autonomous, exerting influence from outside, or may they operate in and through government, perhaps even being part of the government machine itself? This confusion is compounded by the lack of agreed terminology amongst political scientists active in this field. For instance, whereas the term ‘interest group’ is used in the USA and elsewhere to describe all organized groups, it tends to be used in the UK to refer only to those groups that advance or defend the interests of their members. The term ‘pressure group’ is therefore usually preferred in the UK, ‘interest group’ tending to be used as a subcategory of the broader classification. Groups can nevertheless be classified into three types:  communal groups  institutional groups  associational groups. Copyright © 2013. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. Communal groups The chief characteristic of communal groups is that they are embedded in the social fabric, in the sense that membership is based on birth, rather than recruitment. Examples of such groups are families, tribes, castes and ethnic groups. Unlike conventional interest groups, to which members choose to belong, and which possess a formal structure and organization, communal groups are founded on the basis of a shared heritage and traditional bonds and loyalties. Such groups still play a major role in the politics of developing states. In Africa, for instance, ethnic, tribal and kinship ties are often the most important basis of interest articulation. Communal groups also continue to survive and exert influence in advanced industrial states, as the resurgence of ethnic nationalism and the significance of Catholic groups in countries like Italy and Ireland demonstrate. Institutional groups  Interest: That which benefits an individual or group; interests (unlike wants or preferences) are usually understood to be objective or ‘real’. Institutional groups are groups that are part of the machinery of government and attempt to exert influence in and through that machinery. They differ from interest groups in that they enjoy no measure of autonomy or independence. Bureaucracies and the military are the clearest examples of institutional groups, and, not uncommonly, each of these contains a number of competing interests. In the case of authoritarian or totalitarian states, which typically Heywood, Andrew. Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1812814. Created from kcl on 2020-05-21 09:42:23. GROUPS, INTERESTS AND MOVEMENTS CONCEPT Interest group Copyright © 2013. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. An interest group (or pressure group) is an organized association that aims to influence the policies or actions of government. Interest groups differ from political parties in the following way. (1) They seek to exert influence from outside, rather than to win or exercise government power. (2) They typically have a narrow issue focus, in that they are usually concerned with a specific cause or the interests of a particular group. (3) They seldom have the broader programmic or ideological features that are generally associated with political parties. Interest groups are distinguished from social movements by their greater degree of formal organization.  Direct action: Political action taken outside the constitutional and legal framework; direct action may range from passive resistance to terrorism. 247 suppress autonomous groups and movements, rivalry amongst institutional groups may become the principal form of interest articulation. The highly centralized Stalinist system in the USSR, for instance, was driven largely by entrenched bureaucratic and economic interests, in particular those centred around heavy industry. Similarly, the apparently monolithic character of the Hitler state in Germany (1933–45), concealed a reality of bureaucratic infighting as Nazi leaders built up sprawling empires in an endless struggle for power. Institutional groups are not only of significance in non-democratic regimes. Some go so far as to argue that the bureaucratic elites and vested interests that develop in the ministries, departments and agencies of democratic systems in effect shape the policy process: they serve to constrain, some would say dictate to, elected politicians and elected governments. Such groups certainly also form alliances with conventional interest groups, as in the case of the celebrated ‘military–industrial complex’. The significance of the bureaucracy and the military, and the importance of the interests that operate in and through them, are discussed in Chapters 16 and 18, respectively. Associational groups Associational groups are ones that are formed by people who come together to pursue shared, but limited, goals. Groups as associations are characterized by voluntary action and the existence of common interests, aspirations or attitudes. The most obvious examples of associational groups are thus what are usually thought of as interest groups or pressure groups. However, the distinction between these and communal groups may sometimes be blurred. For example, when class loyalties are strong and solidaristic, membership of an associational group such as a trade union may be more an expression of social identity than an instrumental act aimed at furthering a particular goal. Although associational groups are becoming increasingly important in developing states, they are usually seen as a feature of industrial societies. Industrialization both generates social differentiation, in the form of a complex web of competing interests, and, in a capitalist setting at least, encourages the growth of self-seeking and individualized patterns of behaviour in the place of ones shaped by custom and tradition. When their primary function is to deal with government and other public bodies, such groups are usually called interest groups. Interest groups appear in a variety of shapes and sizes. They are concerned with an enormous array of issues and causes, and use tactics that range from serving on public bodies and helping to administer government programmes to organizing campaigns of civil disobedience (see p. 259) and popular protest. Similarly, they may operate at a local, national, or (as discussed later) international level, or at a combination of these. However, anti-constitutional and paramilitary groups are excluded from this classification. Groups such as the Black Panthers and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) may not be categorized as interest groups because they sought fundamentally to restructure the political system, not merely to influence it, and used the tactics of terrorism (see p. 416) and direct action instead of pressure politics. Structure must, however, be imposed on the apparently shapeless interest group universe by the attempt to identify the different types of group. The two most common classifications are: Heywood, Andrew. Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1812814. Created from kcl on 2020-05-21 09:42:23. 248 POLITICS CONCEPT Nongovernmental organization Copyright © 2013. Palgrave Macmillan. All rights reserved. A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a private, non-commercial group or body which seeks to achieve its ends through non-violent means. NGOs are usually active in international politics and may be accorded formal consultation rights by bodies such as the UN or EU. Operational NGOs are those whose primary purpose is the design and implementation of projects that are usually either developmentrelated or relief-related. Advocacy NGOs exist to promote or defend a particular cause, and are more concerned with expertise and specialist knowledge than with operational capacity.  sectional and promotional groups  insider and outsider groups. Sectional groups (sometimes called protective or functional groups) exist to advance or protect the (usually material) interests of their members. Trade unions, business corporations, trade associations and professional bodies are the prime examples of this type of group. Their ‘sectional’ character is derived from the fact that they represent a section of society: workers, employers, consumers, an ethnic or religious group, and so on. Strictly speaking, however, only groups engaged in the production, distribution and exchange of goods and services can be seen as ‘functional’ groups. In the USA, sectional groups are often classified as ‘private interest groups’, to stress that their principal concern is the betterment and well-being of their members, not of society in general. In contrast, promotional groups (sometimes termed cause or attitude groups) are set up to advance shared values, ideals or principles. These causes are many and diverse. They include ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ lobbies on abortion, campaigns in favour of civil liberties or against sex and violence on television, protests about pollution and animal cruelty or in defence of traditional or religious values. In the USA, promotional groups are dubbed ‘public interest groups’, to emphasize that they promote collective, rather than selective, benefits. When involved in international politics, these groups are often call nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. Promotional groups are therefore defined by the fact that they aim to help groups other than their own members. Save the Whale, for instance, is an organization for whales, not one of whales. Some organizations, of course, have both sectional and promotional features. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) addresses the sectional interests of American black people (by opposing discrimination and promoting employment opportunities), but is also concerned with causes such as social justice and racial harmony. The alternative system of classification is based on the status that groups have in relation to government and the strategies they adopt in order to exert pressure. Insider groups enjoy regular, privileged and usually institutionalized access to government through routine consultation or representation on government bodies. In many cases there is an overlap between sectional and insider classifications. This reflects the ability of key economic interests, such as business groups and trade unions, to exert powerful sanctions if their views are ignored by government. Government may also be inclined to consult groups that possess specialist knowledge and information that assists in the formulation of workable policy. Insider status, however, is not always an advantage, since it is conferred only on groups with objectives that are broadly compatible with those of the government and which have a demonstrable capacity to ensure that their members abide by agreed decisions. Outsider groups, on the other hand, are either not consulted by government or consulted only irregularly and not usually at a senior level. In many cases outsider status is an indication of weakness, in that, lacking formal access to government, these groups are forced to ‘go public’ in the hope of exercising indirect influence on the policy process. Ironically, then, there is often an inverse relationship between the public profile of an interest group and the political influence it exerts. Radical protest groups in fields such as environmental protec- Heywood, Andrew. Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1812814. Created from kcl on 2020-05-21 09:42:23. GROUPS, INTERESTS AND MOVEMENTS 249 tion and animal rights may have little choice about being outsiders. Not only are their goals frequently out of step with the priorities of government, but their members and supporters are often attracted by the fact that such groups are untainted by close links with government. In that sense, groups may choose to remain outsiders, both to preserve their ideological purity and independence, and to protect their decentralized power structures. Models of group politics Some commentators believe that the pattern and significance of group politics are derived entirely from factors that are specific to each political system. The role of groups thus reflects a particular political culture (see p. 172), party system, set of institutional arrangements, and so on. This means that general conclusions cannot be drawn about the nature of group politics. On the other hand, the understanding of group politics is often shaped by broader assumptions about both the nature of the political process and the distribution of power in society. These assumptions are closely linked to the rival theories of the state examined in Chapter 3. The most influential of these as models of interest group politics are the following:  pluralism  corporatism  the New Right. Copyright © 2013. 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