POLI107 Week 10 Lecture Notes - social movements and interest groups

Flashcards on political parties, social movements, and pressure groups from POLI107 week 10 lecture notes.

Political Parties

Unlike social movements and pressure groups, these can candidate individuals for public office.

Pressure Groups

Private and voluntary organisations that try to influence or control government policies but do not want to become the government.

Social Movements

Bring together a range of different organisations and associations to work loosely together but are not organised into a single bureaucratic structure like pressure groups and parties.

Social Movement (Components)

A group of people with a conflictual orientation towards an opponent, a collective identity and a set of common beliefs and goals, and a repertory of collective actions.

Sectional Groups (or Interest Groups)

Represent occupational interests – businesses and professional associations and trade unions.

Cause Groups (or promotional or attitude groups)

Do not represent organised occupational interests, but promote causes, policies or issues of their own.

Episodic Groups

Are not usually politically active but become so when the need arises.

Fire Brigade Groups

Formed to fight a specific issue and dissolved when it is over.

Early Social Movements

XIX century working-class coalition, Suffragette movement, Abolition of slavery movement.

New Social Movements

Environmental movement, Peace movement, Human rights movement.

Main Functions of Pressure Groups and Social Movements

Interest aggregation and Interest articulation.

Structural Level Impact of Movements in Politics

Extension of democratic rights and practices, Formation of new political parties.

Intermediate Level Impact of Movements in Politics

Changes in policy.

Lobbying

Money, legitimacy, expertise, accessibility of institutions, nature of the issue.

Political Exchange

Trading goods for social consent; legitimacy.

Contentious Politics

Collective action (e.g. trade unions).

Private Interest Government

The state delegates its authority to make binding decisions.

Republican Theory on Interest Groups

See interest associations as a danger to democracy, as the more particular interests prevail, the less politics will represent to general will of the people.

Liberal (Pluralist) Theory on Interest Groups

See interest associations as an essential source of liberty.

Corporatist Theory on Interest Groups

Claim that interest associations cannot be excluded from the political process and fear that free competition between groups would lead to stronger prevailing over weaker interests.

Collective Goods Through Policy

Benefits that will continue to flow from states to groups unless some countervailing action is taken.

Policies Difficult for Movements to Influence

Policies closely tied to the national cleavage structure, policies for which high levels of political or material resources are at stake, policies regarding military matters, policies on which public opinion is very strong.

Protest

A form of individual and collective action aimed at affecting cultural, political, and social processes, which therefore challenge the status quo or decisions that are seen as unfair.

Factors that shape the political outcomes of SMOs

The political institutional structure, the strength of mobilisation, the degree of elite conflict, the partisanship of the government, The stability of political alignments, the degree of public hostility or support for movement demands, the nature of media coverage, windows for reform