outsider pressure groups

Question 1

examples of legal methods used by outsiders:

Answer 1

-posters/billboards, door to door canvassing, petitions, emails

Question 2

example of a PG’s campaign, using legal methods and indirect action, that put pressure on the executive to make changes:

Answer 2

-Mothers Against Drunk Driving
-campaigned to change nation’s drink driving laws
-e.g. marched on the white house, collected signatures, formed ‘chapters’ of volunteers in each state
-became a national movement
-in 1982 Reagan created presidential commission on drunk driving, many more laws followed, by 2000 the number of drunk driving related incidents had fallen by 60%

Question 3

what’s direct action - with an example:

Answer 3

-used to make changes without going through elected officials, outside the established political routes e.g. strikes, boycotts
-e.g. during the civil rights movements of the 50s and 60s, there was the Montgomery Bus Boycott after Rosa Park’s arrest, which led to the supreme court ruling that segregated buses are unconstitutional

Question 4

describe civil obedience with an example:

Answer 4

-non-violent action that intentionally breaks the law which is considered unjust
-e.g. 1960 greensborough sit ins - black students refused to leave white-only cafes
-this created an environment that was impossible for the president and congress to ignore - led to 1964 civil rights act etc

Question 5

give an example of violent/illegal direct action:

Answer 5

-PG Operation Rescue (anti-abortion) would publish home addresses of staff of abortion clinics and even bombed a clinic

Question 6

give an example of a PG using direct democracy:

Answer 6

-using an initiative to trigger a referendum
-in 2014 the PG Right to Know Colorado triggered the Colorado Proposition 105 which made it law that genetically modified foods would have to be labelled as such

Question 7

describe re-call elections and give an example:

Answer 7

-PGs can mobilise public support to collect enough signatures to trigger an election before the end of a term in office
-in the early 2000s, Colorado recalled 2 senators because they were democrats but voting in line with republicans on the issue of gun control