Pressure Groups

Question 1

What are the different types of pressure group?

Answer 1

Insider and outsider pressure groups

Question 2

What three features define a pressure group?

Answer 2

1) They seek to exert influence from outside parliament rather than win or exercise government power

2) Typically have narrow issue focus - some cases a single issue or a narrow cluster of issues

3) Their members are united by either a shared belief in a particular cause or a common set of interests - people with different ideological and party preferences may thus work happily as members of the same pressure group

Question 3

What is an insider group?

Answer 3

A pressure group that enjoys regular consultation with the government using their influence rather than the politics of direct action or civil disobedience

Question 4

Core vs peripheral insider groups

Answer 4

• Core insider groups have regular and meaningful consultation at ministerial or senior official level within the gov
• Peripheral insider groups may have regular but only cosmetic consultation with gov that does really bring them into the corridors of power

Question 5

What are some examples of insider group methods?

Answer 5

• Working with ministers and civil servants
• Working with Parliament through drafting PMBs and contributing to committee reports
• Working with political parties to influence party policy

Question 6

Are insider groups effective (examples) - For

Answer 6

UsForThem - relatively new pressure group campaigning for schools to fully reopen during the Covid pandemic - it won the backing of 17 Tory MPs and met twice with cival servants from the DfE before key gov decisions on Covid school policy was taken

Question 7

Are insider groups effective (examples) - Against

Answer 7

By contrast to UsForThem, another grassroots parents group, Parents United Against Unsafe Schools, is a far bigger group but has received little to no acknowledgement from the gov - EG Gavin Williamson, education sec, responding to an UsForThem petition signed by 16,500 people calling for masks not to be made compulsory in schools, but not responding to a Parents United Against Unsafe Schools petition with 288,000 signatures which asks that parents not be fined if the decide not to send their children to school during the pandemic - shows different levels of effectiveness

Question 8

What is an outsider group?

Answer 8

A pressure group that is either not consulted by gov or does not want to be closely associated with gov - they try to exert pressure indirectly by the mass media, through public opinion campaigns, and the use of protest politics

Question 9

Why might outsider groups be outsiders? (2)

Answer 9

1) May be denied insider status by gov - lacking formal access to gov - such groups are forced to go public in the hope of exercising indirect influence on the policy process - some of the highest profile groups may be among the UK’s weakest pressure groups

2) Groups may also choose to operate as outsiders - this reflects the radical nature of a group’s goals and a fear of becoming ‘domesticated’ by being too closely involved with government

Question 10

What are examples of outsider group methods?

Answer 10

• Engaging the public to demonstrate extent of commitment and public support for an issue
• Civil disobedience or protesting EG Extinction Rebellion

Question 11

Are outsider groups effective (examples) - Yes

Answer 11

Marcus Rashford’s ‘Free School Meals’ campaign started out as an outsider pressure group and was initially dismissed, but once outsider methods of public support and social media awareness demonstrated the extent of public support for the issue of child poverty, the gov took a keen interest in giving the cause insider access and pledged to spend over £4 million to help children in the winter of 2021 - shows outsider groups can be very effective

Question 12

Are outsider groups effective (examples) - No

Answer 12

Extinction rebellion in Sep 2021 blockaded a number of printing presses around the UK that print national newspapers - apparently in protest over Rupert Murdoch failing to provide truthful coverage of the climate crisis in his newspapers - led to many arrests - PM and leader of the opposition both condemned the protest - these sorts of protests overall risk harming the public perception of groups such as Extinction Rebellion and can undermine their cause as a result - shows outsider groups not effective

Question 13

What are think tanks?

Answer 13

A think tank is a group of policy experts who provide advice, ideas, and policy proposals on political, economic, and social problems

Question 14

What do think tanks do?

Answer 14

They carry out research with the aim of building up a bank of detailed evidence about an issue and use their links with politicians, the media, and political parties to present that evidence in order to shape policy making - they can be left or right wing but many claim to be neutral and not tied to party politics

Question 15

Example of a think tank? (1)

Answer 15

The Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) states that is is a free market think tank ‘entirely independent of any political party or group’ and that its ideas are consistent with a wide range of political positions, including no political position at all

Question 16

Example of the IEA influencing policy?

Answer 16

The IEA is largely credited with being the driving force behind the infamously disastrous economic policies of politics’ answer to Laurel and Hardy - Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss - Kwarteng’s October 2022 budget saw the pound fall to its lowest level against the dollar since decimilaisation was introduced into the markets, and only narrowly avoided a repeat of the 2008 financial crash after an intervention by the Bank of England - this shows the catastrophic impacts think tanks can have and shows they are not good for democracy

Question 17

Arguments that think tanks enrich democracy by carrying out policy research, developing policy options, and aiding public debate

Answer 17

By providing different ideas and the evidence to back them up, thinks tanks are using their expertise to enable the public and politicians to weigh up different ideas, make decisions about what they believe and inform their choices - their expertise is crucial to improving political decision making in the UK

Question 18

Arguments that think tanks push policies and evidence that favour the powerful corporate interests who fund them, undermining democracy

Answer 18

Concerns centre around a lack of transparency around think tanks since they do not have to declare the sources of their funding while politicians do not have to declare meetings with think tanks the way they have to do so with corporations - critics argue that it is not possible for politicians or the public to have confidence in the independence or objectivity of a think tank report if they do not know who funded it, while think tanks themselves maintain that this is more about people who are opposed to their ideas using the funding question of funding to attack them rather than evidence based debate

Question 19

IEA funding breakdown 2018

Answer 19

37% - private individuals and small family businesses
28% - foundations and trusts
17% - income from events, competitions and conferences
14% - large businesses
4% - other income

Question 20

What are lobbyists?

Answer 20

Individuals and firms that are paid by clients to influence gov and/or MPs and Lords peers to act in their client’s interests, particularly when legislation is under consideration - in the UK lobbying is an industry estimated to be with £2 billion per year and employing 4,000 people

Question 21

Arguments that lobbying enhances democracy

Answer 21

Lobbying allows groups representing a wide array of interests to provide detailed evidence to the gov prior to a decision being made and focus on problems with current policies - this improves the quality of the decisions being made - there are many lobbying firms such as Hanbury Strategy that can be hired by groups while other groups, particularly wealthy and well-organised groups, have their own in-house lobbying teams

Question 22

Arguments that lobbying can be abused and this damages democracy

Answer 22

The wealthiest groups can afford to spend vast sums on lobbying and can rely on who they know rather than what they know to influence policy in their interest, no matter the public consequence - the perception of the misuse of public office for private gain in very damaging to trust in politics

Question 23

Examples of the misuse of public office for private gain (2012 Lord Blencathra)

Answer 23

In 2012, Lord Blencathra, a former Tory minister in John Major’s gov, was found to have accepted £12,000 per month to lobby on behalf of the Cayman Islands

Question 24

Examples of the misuse of public office for private gain (Patterson 2021)

Answer 24

In 2021 the parliamentary standards committee found that Owen Patterson, a Conservative MP in the HoC, had accepted £100,000 from two companies, Randox and Lyn’s Country Foods, to lobby on their behalf in the Commons - Patterson eventually resigned as an MP as a result of the scandal