I.
Interest articulation as part of political systems
A. Many forms of interest
articulation
IA – the process whereby citizens and social groups
express their needs and demands to the government
o
citizens are members of society first, political action is secondary
o
IA can be individual or collective
o
What are the ways political interests are articulated
in a given political arrangement? (political system)
o
Does the development of multiple group affiliations
support democracy? Why or why
not?
B. Growth as a result of
internal social complexity, demands on government and widening communications
venues
a. Nuclear power, environmental
preservation, clean water standards
II.
Citizen Action
A.
As individuals, families, small groups, societies: Citizen action –
human interaction is about working with one another to achieve our goals
(college/fac/staff/students)
a. Voting – most common form of
participation (even in authoritarian systems)
b. Keeps preferences stated and
re-stated over time to the political system
c. Blunt selection of political
elites
d. Volunteerism
???
C. personal interest contacts
a. writing, faxing, e-mailing,
phoning, visiting your Congressmember
b. another universal type of contact
even in authoritarian system (how would this work in an authoritarian system?)
D. spontaneous political
protest – citizens act spontaneously as a group
a. Chancellor Leutze selection
b.
c. Solidarity Movement –
E. Variety of ways in which
citizens participate
a. Voting
b. Persuade others how to vote
c. Work for party or candidate
d. Community action (Stop the
Dump)
e. Contact local officials
f. Signed a petition
g. Participated in peaceful
protest demonstration (planned)
i.
One of the most visible forms of citizen action
ii.
Reasons for protest: 1) groups that lack access or think they lack
access to legitimate channels of government (these are the unplanned explosions
of frustration) 2) peaceful protests are the continuance of “normal” politics
by other means (its planned, its not anti-governmental but usually anti-policy
– protesters tend to be better educated).
1. why peaceful, organized
protest? Good method of gaining
attention – especially if have a critical mass of protesters (hey, this is
important to a lot of people!)
2. high SES correlates with
higher likelihood that individuals will use multiple methods of contacting
III.
Interest Groups – more institutionalized form of contacting
IG: Enduring
organizational structure
Professional staffs
Insiders to the political
process
A. Anomic groups:
a. Spontaneous formation
b. no planning/organization
c. tend to act violently
d. sometimes subgroups of
larger class/goups of people
B. Non associational groups:
a. Rarely well organized
b. Form on common interests
(ethnicity, kinship, religion)
i.
Very large group that is not formally organziaed
– mbrs have only dim identification (birders?) hard
to organize these
ii.
Small village or economic subgroup where members know each other
intimately
C. Institutional groups:
a. formal groups
b. other purpose than Interest
Articulation (government, religion)
c. corporate, union,
governmental institution (Women of the Senate)
d. has a socializing effect on
individuals
D. Associational groups:
a. formed explicitly to
represent interest
b. socialize individuals
http://www.csuchico.edu/~kfountain/
A. Civic groups: ideological or
policy goal
a. Socializing effect
IV.
Civil Society
-Participation in groups helps create
a civil society bc/groups provide a socializing
function
-Groups members learn how to access
the political system
-Groups learn that the process is an
important thing – not just results (voting even though your candidate looses – this
is the problem with theories of voting that describe voting as an irrational
behavior)
-Groups may exist informally but
interact internationally with individuals and other groups – extending the
socializing effect to the global level (epistemic communities: Galápagos
Archipelago – Charles Darwin Research Station).
A. Interest group systems
1. Pluralist
a. Multiple groups may
represent a single societal interest (many abortion groups on both sides of the
argument; there are multiple labor groups and business groups)
b. Membership is non-compulsory
and limited
c. Groups often are
decentralized with limited organizational structure
d. There is a clear separation
between interest groups and the government
2. Democratic Corporatist (more
organized representation of interests)
a. A single peak association
normally represents each societal interest (business – Chambers of Commerce)
b. Membership in the peak
association is often compulsory and nearly universal
c. Peak associations are
centrally organized and direct the actions of their members
d. Groups are often
systematically involved in making and implementing policy (advisory role for
government officials on the local economy)
-“single
peak association” one group at the top of the triangle of a type of interest –
all the different business people – represented by one business
association/group of some sort (eg: Lowe’s and Belk
together as members of the only business interest association or Solidarity as
the de facto leader of the Trade Unions in 1980s Poland)
-these
groups often work closely w/government to resolve policy problems (zoning/labor
rights)
-countries
w/ large and unified peak associations of labor and business that negotiate w/
one another and government have strong records (better than pluralist
countries) at maintaining employment, restraining inflation and increasing
social spending
ex:
-corporatist
systems can be more controlled and groups would then be dominated by government
or a single larger interest (church, party =
3. Controlled interest group
systems (corporatist but not as democratic)
a. There is a single group for
each sector
b. Membership is often
compulsory
c. Each group is normally
hierarchically organized
d. Groups are controlled by the
government or its agents in order to mobilize support for government policy
e. Organizations are penetrated
and dominated by political institutions (to facilitate government control of society-
e and d are the same)
f. Most common in authoritarian
systems – communist systems – eg:
V.
Access to the influential
A. to be influential interest
groups must be able to access decisionmakers
B. do this via channels of
political access (no guarantee of result)
C. two major types of resources
that can be used to access the political elites:
1. legitimate structures of
government
2. direct violence
D. Legitimate (&
constitutional) channels
1. Personal connections – face
to face has more weight
2. Mass media – interest groups
advertise (policy ads – immigration and
3. Political parties –
4. Legislatures – the
committees, a decentralized committee system and loose party discipline make
legislatures more accessible for groups (USA, Germany) and less so when party
discipline is greater (GB/France)
5. Government bureaucracies –
administrative discretion to administer laws/policies
6. sometimes these are limited
(what if a political system is dominated by a single party or the bureaucracy
is professionalized or not – then you need to access the party and forget about
everything else bc/that is the locus of power)
E. Coercive channels and
tactics
Protest
demonstrations
1. Choice of the powerless
2. increasingly a choice of the
established – extension of normal politics by other means
3. Successful if legitimacy of
regime in question
4. Terrorism reflects desires
of groups to change the rules of the game.
What does Usama bin Laden
want? Islamic rule of the
VI.
Policy perspectives on Interest Articulation
A. Question of what policy
preferences are expressed
a. Are all
groups created equal?
b. Example: AARP versus ??? no association representing young taxpayers
exists
B. Examples: extractive, distributive, regulative
VII.
Interest Group Development
A. Trend in democratic societies
towards less participation
B. Trend in non-democratic societies
towards more participation