Interest groups
Organizations that defend the interests of a particular group of people. Use a mixture of conventional and unconventional tactics.
Protective groups
Seek selective benefits for their members, defend an interest
Promotional groups
Promoting some distinct political causes, anyone can join
Functions of interest groups
- Increase representation and participation
- Public awareness
- Agenda setting
- Monitoring of government
- Lobbying
Distinctions between interest groups and political parties
- Interest groups don’t seek to be part of government
2. Interest groups tend to focus on one political issue or a specific range of issues
Corporatism
Institutionalized cooperation between key interest groups, political parties and the state in formulation of public policies
Interest groups in corporatism (social partners)
- Integrated in a set of institutional arrangements facilitating permanent bargaining
- Centralized and concentrated in peak associations
- Willing to compromise
Corporatism has declined in importance
- European integration
- Changes in the way economic production is organized
- New democracies emerging in Eastern Europe where trade unions were associated with communist past
Pluralism
Competition between interest groups for influence on public policies in which the state plays a neutral role
Interest groups in pluralism
- Dispersed across different institutional arenas
- Fragmented into a number of groups
- Competing with each other
Policy networks
Heterogeneous group of persons and organizations, including interest groups, that are part of a relatively loose but enduring social structure
Social movements
Dense organizational networks of people sharing some common identity, who engage in a sustained series of non-institutionalized action
Three important elements
- Common sense of identity
- Sustained action
- Non-institutionalized channels of operation
