Chapter 10: Interest Groups

interest group

An organization of people with shared policy goals entering the policy process at several points to try to achieve those goals. They pursue their goals in many arenas.

pluralism

A theory of government and politics emphasizing that many groups, each pressing for its preferred policies, compete and counterbalance one another in the political marketplace. (Politics is mainly a competition among groups, each one pressing for its own preferred policies.)

elitism

A theory of government and politics contending that societies are divided along class lines and that an upper-class elite will hold most of the power and thus in effect run the government (regardless of the formal niceties of governmental organization.)

hyperpluralism

A theory of government and politics contending that groups are so strong that government, seeking to please them all, is thereby weakened. (It is an extreme, exaggerated, or perverted form of pluralism.)

iron triangles

Subgovernments are composed of interest group leaders interested in a particular policy, the government agency in charge of administering that policy, and the members of congressional committees and subcommittees handling that policy; they exercise a great deal of control over specific policy areas.

potential group

All the people who might be interest group members because they share some common interest. (It is almost always larger than an actual group.)

actual group

The people in the potential group who actually join. (That part of the potential group consisting of members who actually join.)

collective good

Something of value (money, a tax write-off, prestige, clean air, and so on) that cannot be withheld from a potential group member.

free-rider problem

For a group, the problem of people not joining because they can benefit from the group's activities without joining. (The bigger the group, the more serious the problem.)

selective benefits

Goods (such as information publications, travel discounts, and group insurance rates) that a group can restrict to those who actually join (and pay their annual dues.)

single-issue groups

Groups that have a narrow interest, tend to dislike compromise, and often draw membership from people new to politics. (These features distinguish them from traditional interest groups.)

lobbying

According to Lester Milbrath, a "communication, by someone other than a citizen acting on his or her own behalf, directed to governmental decision maker with the hope of influencing his or her decision."

electioneering

Direct group involvement in the electoral process, for example, by helping to fund campaigns, getting members to work for candidates, and forming political action committees. (Groups can help fund campaigns, provide testimony, and get members to work for candidates, and some form political action committees (PACs)

political action committees (PACs)

Groups that raise money from individuals and then distribute it in the form of contributions to candidates that the group supports.

• PACs must register with the FEC and report their donations and contributions to it.

• Individual contributions to a PAC are limited to $5,000 per year and a PAC may give up to $5,000 to a candidate for each election. (Political funding vehicles created by the 1974 campaign finance reforms. A corporation, union, or some other interest group can create one of these and register it with the Federal Election Commission, which will meticulously monitor its expenditures.)

union shop

A provision found in some collective bargaining agreements requiring all employees of a business to join the union within a short period, usually 30 days, and to remain members as a condition of employment.

right-to-work law

A state law forbidding requirements that workers must join a union to hold their jobs. It was specifically permitted in states by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947

public interest lobbies

According to Jeffery Berry, organizations that seek "a collective good, the achievement of which will not selectively and materially benefit the membership of activities of the organization."