Week 11 - Interest Groups Flashcards
Interest Groups Definition
an organization of individuals who share a common political goal and mobilize for the purpose of influencing government decisions
Social movements definition
An informal network of organizations and individuals who engage in political struggle on behalf of a common identity or shared values
What is the representative function of interest groups?
Interest groups represent the interests of their members to policy makers who may not otherwise be aware of their policy positions
These members can be considered issue publics who have vested interest in policies and are typically much more informed than the average citizen
What is the democratic participation role of interest groups (3)
Provide an alternative avenue of democratic participation
- Generates social capital that is critical for the health of a democracy
- Because interest groups have specialized knowledge of public policy, they are a critical source of information for policy makers
- key source of ready-made policy options for policy makers - they provide program alternatives
What is the monitoring function of interest groups
- They help set the agenda in issue areas when they believe public policy change is needed
- They sound the alarm when monitoring the implementation of public policy
List the types of interest groups (3)
- Economic interest groups
- Equal opportunity groups
- Public interest groups
What is the most common type of interest group - give 5 examples
Economic interest groups
- Corporations (e.g., Rogers)
- Peak associations (e.g., Canadian Chamber of Commerce)
- Trade and professional organizations (e.g., CMA)
- Commodity or producer associations (e.g., CFA)
- Unions (e.g., Unifor)
What are equal opourtunity interest groups?
Some groups represent the interests of marginalized communities (e.g., women, racial and ethic groups, the disabled, etc.) – these are equal opportunity groups
What are public interest groups
Other groups pursue policy that benefits all citizens equally – these are public interest groups (e.g., environmental groups)
Federalism and interest groups
•Canada’s federal system ensures that most interest groups adopt a federated structure with independent provincial wings
•On the one hand, this allows for flexible “venue-shopping” where interest groups can make headway with certain provinces
•On the other hand, can pose challenges for group cohesion and make it more challenging to provide a single, confident voice
Explain the Pluralism theory (interest group theory)
- Traditional political science theory is relatively positive towards interest groups
- Formation of groups along common interests is the ultimate democratic act
- Pluralist theory sees democratic decision making as resulting from a contest of competing groups in society (i.e. civil society)
What are the limits of pluralism
There is an assumption in classic pluralist theory that all interests in society will be effectively mobilized in civil society groups and that competition is generally fair. This is a very wrong assumption
- The crux of the issue is the problem of collective action or the free-rider problem.
- Why assume the costs of participating in a collective effort when you will receive the benefits of that effort regardless of whether or not you join and participate?
- Why group projects are the worst
What are solutions to the collective action problem, their downfalls, and the single MOST EFFECTIVE SOLUTION
Proposed solutions:
•Solidary benefits – people derive satisfaction from working and engaging with others
•Expressive benefits – people derive satisfaction from doing something they believe in
Their cons:
•Solidary benefits diminish as the organization size increases
•Purposive benefits are not equally distributed among possible causes
•Participation entails cost and disadvantaged citizens are less able to pay that cost regardless of the solidary and purposive benefits
BEST SOLUTION:
•The most effective way to solve the collective action problem is to provide tangible material benefits to members of your organization
•Sometimes such benefits are information, but other times they are financial
•E.g., The American Association of Retired People (AARP) provides discounts for health insurance
List the limits to business power
•Coalition building: business interests are not monolithic and are often partnered with non-economic interest groups
•Unsympathetic public opinion: power decreases when spotlight is shone on an issue
•Institutional structures: certain rules or institutions may limit access to business interests (i.e. Parliamentary vs. Congressional systems)
List the lessons for Canada (3)
•Concentration of power in Prime Minister and the central agencies limit interest group access compared to Congress and its committees
•Diffusion of other policy making throughout bureaucracy make it difficult to know who to target lobbying efforts otherwise
•A lot of policy decided via executive federalism – very inaccessible by interest groups
Interest groups have unequal resources. Four resources are critical to interest group success:
- Leadership
- Membership size
- Membership intensity
- Money
Interest groups have unequal resources. Four resources are critical to interest group success
- Leadership
2.Membership size
3.Membership intensity
4.Money
What is the LEADERSHIP resource for interest groups
- Overcoming the collective action problems often times requires effective, charismatic leadership
- These leaders are often called political entrepreneurs
- They can imprint a sense of mission among group members and compel action by their example
- BUT: too much dependence on such leaders can lead to organization failure when they leave
What is the MEMBERSHIP SIZE resource for interest groups
- All else being equal, more members = more influence
- These organizations have more potential votes, donations, and volunteers on offer to politicians
- The organizations can use their membership to apply external pressure and attract media attention
What is the MEMBERSHIP INTENSITY resource for interest groups
- All else being equal, more intensity = more influence
- Same logic as membership size
- Intense memberships mean loud, vocal interest groups that are able to publicly embarrass politicians
- More likely to show up to public meetings and rallies
What is the trade off between membership size and intensity?
because of the collective action problem. There is more incentive to free ride with larger groups.
What is the MONEY resource for interest groups
- Money trumps all other resources that can be commanded by interest groups
- Unfortunately, it is also the resource most likely to be distributed unevenly
- Economic interest groups have the overwhelming advantage
List 8 reasons why money matters for interest groups
•Hire permanent staff
•Hire outside professional assistance
•Provide services to members (e.g., material incentives)
•Strategic donations for access to policy makers, and maybe their votes
●To conduct more fundraising
●Maintain membership
●Issue-based advertising
●Hire experts to develop policy proposals
Money and writ periods?
- Unlike in the United States, money is less of a factor in terms of political donations and campaign spending
- Corporations and unions banned from donating to federal parties as of 2004 and to political candidates as of 2006 (some variation by province)
- Third party groups can only spend a maximum of $150,000 during a writ period of an election
- They can spend in an unlimited fashion before the writ is called
The behaviour of interest groups designed to influence policy can be boiled down to three types of strategies:
- Direct lobbying
- Indirect lobbying
- Court-based strategies
What is direct Lobbying?
- Direct lobbying is where interest groups directly contact policy makers to influence the process
- MPs typically have very little influence due to party discipline
- Typical targets include the PMO, PCO, Deputy Ministers and most commonly mid-level bureaucrats
What is direct lobbying?
- Direct lobbying is where interest groups directly contact policy makers to influence the process
- MPs typically have very little influence due to party discipline
- Typical targets include the PMO, PCO, Deputy Ministers and most commonly mid-level bureaucrats
How can Direct Lobbying be done
- Lobbying can be done in-house by the interest group itself
- Or they can hire outside firms who specialize in lobbying
- In either case, its more effective to hire lobbyists with previous experience in government
- the revolving door
Lobbying in Canada from 1980 - 2019, how did it change?
•Large lobbying firms began growing in the 1980s, necessitating regulation
•1985 Lobbying Act required both Tier I and Tier II lobbyists to register
•Required public disclosure of meetings
•1995 amendments required disclosure of subject matter of meetings and additional transparency
•2008 changes banned public servants from lobbying for 5 years, recording of phone calls
Enforcement of lobbying regulations is scatter shot and prosecuting violations is mostly unheard of
•In 2018-2019, 2782 organizations with 6819 lobbyists lobbied members of government over 30,000 times
Does direct lobbying matter?
- Very limited evidence that lobbying/contributions change votes even in U.S. context
- Little to no evidence that contributions change electoral outcomes
- Rather, interest groups lobby and contribute to those they believe are their allies
- Interest group type and resources don’t correlate with the likelihood of successful policy passage This is because interest groups form coalitions – corporate interests are often divided on bills and they partner with non-corporate interests to give their sides more credibility
BUT:
These factors may play an important role in what issues get on the policy making agenda and which are ignored entirely
This is much, much harder to test in academic research
What is indirect Lobbying?
•A lot of interest groups either lack access to policy makers or lack the resources to make use of such access
•So, they turn to indirect lobbying where they influence public opinion by bringing an issue to public attention or through persuasion
•In turn, public attention may affect policy action
What are the three main tactics of indirect lobbying
- Issue advocacy ads (but they are expensive)
- Internet and social media campaigns
- Protest
Most political issues receive little attention, so policy makers feel little need to follow the public. The ability to draw public attention to an issue can be powerful
What are court based strategies?
- Interest groups can also affect policy through litigation in the Courts
- This is a particularly influential strategy for environmental groups and those linked to anti-discrimination campaigns
- Court decisions then force changes in public policy
What are three conclusions we can draw about interest group strategies?
•None of these strategies is mutually exclusive, but interest groups tend to specialize in direct or indirect strategies
•Insider groups with money and resources focus on direct methods, outsider groups use indirect methods
•Unsurprisingly, economic interest groups have an advantage using more costly direct methods
Review: What is the term for a loose association of interest groups and individuals who share a common identity or set of values and try to influence politics and society?
Social movements
Match these three:
- Canadian Federation of Independent Business
- world Wildlife Federation
- Canadian Islamic Congress
To three of these:
- trade association
- Union
- Corporation
- public interest group
- Equal oppourtunity group
- Canadian Federation = trade association
- Public interest group
- Equal opportunity group
Pluralism is fundamentally flawed because not all potential interests have the ability to mobilize due to a __________ problem.
Interest groups can provide incentives for mobilization to mitigate this problem, like _________ benefits where people derive satisfaction from doing something they believe in or, perhaps most effectively, ___________ benefits like newsletters or discounts. This gives a huge advantage to economic interest groups.
- Collective action/freerider
- Expressive
- Material/financial
Which of the following IS NOT a limitation on the power of business?
- Business interests often conflict internally such that they form allies with public interest groups
- Certain institutions fundamentally limit interest group influence, like parliamentary government
- Public opinion is often unsympathetic to business interests once the spotlight is shone on them
- Business interests lack the resources to gain access to policymakers in the bureaucracy
Business interests lack the resources to gain access to policymakers in the bureaucracy
