Interest groups Flashcards
What are the different types of pressure groups?
Interest groups- any group which seeks to promote a particular policy or set, and organise to
influence politics & policy-makers to achieve this e.g. Greenpeace
Social movements- a large informal grouping of individuals and/or organizations which aim to promote a particular
political or social issue, or to promote or resist social change e.g. A democracy movement – Arab Spring. Mass demonstrations in democracies- Student protests
What are the different types of economic goods?
Private goods- rivalrous & excludable (chas transfer)
Common pool resource- rivalrous & non-excludable
Club goods- non-rivalrous & excludable e.g. farm subsidies,
import restrictions
Public goods- non-rivalrous & non-excludable
e.g. clean air, defence, gender equality
Explain Mancur Olson’s theory of collective action
Some groups are more able to moblise than others and as a result why public goods are likely to be under-supplied while private and club goods are likely to be over-supplied
Reward for participating - benefits of the goods x probability the individual makes a difference - the cost
Findings- cooperation is easier to achieve in a smaller group so small group tyranny can have a larger impact rather than larger groups as there’s a greater chance people will defect as it’s harder to know what others will do and we can rely on others to do the work and still reap the benefit.
Explain the free riding problem (Olsen)
People don’t participate as the cost is higher than the benefit so you get more if you defect. Your probability of making a difference (P) is very low, and you are likely
to benefit (B) regardless of whether you show up.
Additionally, the fear that you don’t know whether others will participate. Therefore, it’s hard to organise.
Explain Kuran’s ‘Threshold model’
Key assumption: cost of protest (risk) is lower when others protest. People lack
information about others’ preferences
Implication: Everyone has a “revolutionary threshold”; if the number of citizens
protesting against the regime is above my threshold, I also protest.
Consider 2 threshold sequences for a 10-person population:
A = {0,2,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10} => equilibrium is 1
B = {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10} => equilibrium is 9
Implies a small change in preferences can create a “revolutionary bandwagon”
Evidence of Threshold model: Cell phones and political mobilization in Africa
Coordination capacity- how easy is it for you to know what someone else is doing. Phones allow this.
Authoritarian govs will shut down cell phone tower before an election to prevent this
As phone coverage sites expanded, there
were more violence and protests
Explain the Tipping Model theory
(Ginkel and Smith 1999; Kuran 1991; Lohmann 1994).
The threshold needed for people to join. Need so many to join. Will only go when there is a guarantee of what people’s preferences are and that people will show and not defect.
Explain Thies and Porche’s case study on collective action inertia
(READING)
The collective action problem with agricultural goods is why we have protectionist measures when it’s common interest to liberalise.
To liberalise would help reduce prices so reject protectionist policies (protects producers not consumers)
Collective action problem is the companies by defecting make more money despite being in the best interest of the majority to liberalise
Lags in institutional support argument- as we grow the econ and try to protect agricultural producers we created rules which are hard to change when people want to keep the rules. Therefore, the rules are confining behaviour and we’re not able to organise against them.
Critical juncture (econ crisis triggers change)- creates an opportunity for people to change so organise
Supply and demand argument
MAIN FINDING- economic factors doesn’t really matters what does is politics and institutions
