Lesson 2 Flashcards
Group theory of Politics
What is a group?
In public policy, a “group” in “group theory” refers to a collection of individuals with shared interest who come together to influence policy decisions, such as interest groups, advocacy organizations, or informal coalitions, essentially viewing public policy as a product of the power dynamics between these different groups vying for influence.
What is group theory/group theory?
- Group theory focuses on the formation and behavior of groups within a society.
- These groups can be formal organizations, interest groups, advocacy groups or informal coalitions with shared interest.
What is group interactions in group theory?
- The theory examines how groups interact with each other and with the broader political and social environment.
- It explores the dynamic of cooperation competition, conflict and collaboration among groups.
What does group theory asserts?
- Group theory asserts that groups play a crucial role in shaping public policies.
- The preferences, demands, and activities of various groups influence the policy-making process at different stages.
How does group theory emerge?
- The whole structure of modern society is associational
- Individuals bound together to form groups to pursue their own interest.
- Interest groups are widely perceived as channels through which societal interests express their policy preferences and as key actors in effective problem solving.
Who dominated early theories of state?
Earlier theories of state was dominated by institutionalism and elitist theories.
What is institutionalism?
Institutionalism focused on the way state institution, i.e., the executive, legislature, and the judiciary functions.
What is the concept of elite?
The concept of ‘elites’ is based on the notion that every society holds a ruling minority, a group that controls and disputes the most important power sources.
Why are groups important in the political and policy-making process?
Groups are the heart of politics and policy making in a complex, large and increasingly specialized governmental system.
What does the political theory of pluralism argue about the distribution of political power?
The political theory of pluralism holds that political power in society dies not lie with the electorate, or with a small concentrated elite, but is distributed among wide numbers of groups.
What is group membership?
First, group membership is defined as ‘objectively’ belonging to a particular social group. Psychological closeness to the group or even awareness of one’s membership is not necessary to be classified as a member.
What is the definition of “In-Group”?
This denotes a group of which a person is a member. An ingroup is a social category or group with which you identify strongly.
What is the definition of “Out-Group”?
This represents any group of which a person is not a member of a social category or group with which you do not identify.
What is an important characteristic of an in or out group?
An important characteristic of in-out group is that groups mark their identities communicatively by the distinctive language and speech styles they create and use, the dress codes they adopt, and the festivals and pageants that highlight their unique traditions and rituals, and so forth.
How is group identification defined?
Group identification is defined as having two related components:
1. A self-awareness of one’s membership in the group
2. A psychological sense of attachment to the group.
Thus defined, group membership is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for group identification.
What is the definition of group consciousness?
This is a ‘politicized awareness, or ideology, regarding the the group’s relative positions in society, and a commitment to collective action aimed at realizing the group’s interests’
What is the definition of group affect?
Group affect refers simply to the positive or negative valence that an individual attaches to a group.
How do group members’ preferences influence their formation and behavior within a group?
Group members are united by their shared preferences on specific policies, and the preferences were revealed by the member’s activity or behavior.
Government as an Aggregation of Groups
Government is seen as an aggregations of groups which have interest and interactions with each other and outside groups.
What do group theorist assume about human behavior?
Group theorists assumed that humans have tendency to organize unaffiliated individual lacks means of access.
What is an underlying assumption of group approach?
The underlying assumption of group approach is that one cannot understand political behavior in the small group simply by knowing the characteristics of those who make up the group; the group setting is crucial factor.
Each group has character of its own, not reducible to its individual members. This is analogous to the holistic notion of national character.
What is Groupthink?
Int he group approach, so-called groupthink may be involved. Indications of the existence of groupthink include societal pressure to enforce conformity, limiting discussion to only few alternatives, failing to re-examine initial decisions, and making little attempt to seek information from outside experts who may challenge a preferred policy.
What are the dangers in a cohesive decision-making group?
In a cohesive decision-making group, that is, one made of people with common interests, there is always the danger that the decision-makers will fall into the trap of unconsciously making proposals that they think will please their colleagues.
The group begins to value an atmosphere of agreement more than rational decision resulting from full, open, and more critical discussions of the issues.
What are the criticisms of the Group Approach?
- It ignores individual, so it cannot account for individual by group membership
- Its exclusiveness to U.S. system limits generalizability
- The concept of group loses its sensible meaning if defined broadly enough to include all political activity, and does not adequately deal wit the psychological bases of individual political or account for the impact of government institutions upon individual and group behavior.
What is classical pluralism?
Classical pluralism is a descriptive theory and rests on the assumption of a democratic system characterized by numerous civil society organizations that compete with each other in relation to government to advance their own interests.
The government is depicted as a relatively neutral arena for mediating and finding compromises between various interest.
What is pluralism?
Pluralism is a popular theory on how political power is distributed in democratic society, in particular, the United States.
What is the perspective of pluralism?
From this perspective, there is no single ruling elite. The state is a neutral entity that solves conflict between groups; no particular group controls the state.
What is pluralism based on?
Pluralism is based on the notion that in any representative democracy, power is distributed equally between organized groups and these groups will compete for resources with which to influence policy decisions.
What does pluralism believe on?
Pluralists believe the interest group system is democratic because people are free to join or to organize groups that reflect their own interest.
What are the assumption by the pluralist theory about support?
The pluralist assumption widely held is that non-elites will be able to maintain their control over elites if, and only if, the elites compete with each other for non-elite support and if, and only if, there is a full range of organized groups sufficient to express and protect the full variety of political demands in any society.
What are the assumption by the pluralist theory about the leaders?
Political power is pluralistic in the sense that there exist many different sets of leaders; each set has somewhat different objectives from the others, each has access to its own political resources, each is relatively independent of the others
There does not exist a single set of all powerful leaders who are wholly agreed on their major goals.
What are the assumption by the pluralist theory power?
Within the public arena there will be countervailing centers of power within governmental institutions and among outsiders. Competition is implicit in the notion that groups, as surrogates of individuals, will produce products representing the diversity of opinions that might have been possible in the individual decision days of democratic Athens.
What are some critics about the pluralism theory?
- Some interests habitually lose in the policy making process while others habitually win
- Inequality or results remains an important aspect of group politics
- The government has lost its basic sense of legitimacy and authority.
- The degradation of the public interest by the private interest of groups leading to political capture
