Pressure Groups and Democracy
See also Analysing Pressure Groups and Pressure Group Power
See also Pressure Politics : A Challenge to Democracy? Very Useful article by Wyn Grant and Michael Rush NEW link added February 2013
Please note also that additional information and activities on Pressure Groups [geared to A2 Sociology specifications] may be found in the relevant section of the educationforum site.
March 2023
These new links relate to the recent activities of Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Insulate Britain ad to the legislative proposals of UK Government in the Public Order Bill. The Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill and the Strikes Minimum Service Levels] Bill.
Click here for Extension Materials supplements to Politics Review
Click here for What us Lobbying? A Brief Guide [BBC}
Click here for Guardian documentary on Climate Change
Click here for Naomi Klein: This Changes Everything
Click here for Greta Thunberg
Click here and scroll through for recent Guardian coverage of Just Stop Oil and here for Extinction Rebellion [BBC}
Click here for Just Stop Oil and here for Extinction Rebellion and here for Insulate Britain and here for Climate Change
Click here and here and here and here for coverage of Extinction Rebellion
Click here for Extinction Rebellion YouTube Channel
Click here for Just Stop Oil
Click here for New Statesman on Insulate Britain
Click here and here for BBC on Insulate Britain
Click here and here and here for Guardian on Insulate Britain
Click here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here for Public Order bill
Click here for BBC coverage of Priti Patel on disruptive protests and Boris Johnson on “irresponsible crusties”
Click here and here and here and here and here and here and here on Public Order Bill [Guardian]
Click here for proposed amendment to Public Order Bill
Click here for amendment to the Public Order Bill [BBC}
Click here and here for defeats for the Public Order Bill in the House of Lords
Click here for the Police and Crime Bill [BBC} and here and here for Guardian
Click here and here and here and here for the Police, Crime , Courts and Sentencing Bill
Click here for BBC explanation of the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill
Click here and here and here and here and here and here for Strikes[Minimum Service Levels] Bill
Click here for trends in the annual number of working days lost in strike action
Click here for a useful Observer article by Will Hutton. NEW link added August 2013. You may like to discuss with your teachers the extent to which political power is fragmenting due to the growth of single issue pressure groups compared with the extent to which factors such as the growth of economic inequality and increased globalisation have increased the concentration of political power among business elites. These issues are highlighted in readers' comments on Will Hutton's article.
Supporters of liberal democracy believe that its main elements [which include regular competitive elections based upon universal adult suffrage, government accountability to parliament and ultimately to the electorate, the rule of law and freedom of speech and assembly] make for a relatively effective and representative political system. However liberal democracies may be analysed more critically using theoretical frameworks based around the ideas of Marxism, Elitism, Corporatism and the New Right and we shall find also that conclusions about pressure groups and democracy also vary according to the analytical frameworks used to analyse pressure group activity.
- How Pressure Groups may contribute to the democratic process
In the theoretical framework of democratic pluralism states are assumed to be neutral arbiters [or impartial referees] evaluating the claims of a vast number of possibly competing pressure groups in accordance with the national interest. States are assumed to attempt to represent the interests of societies as a whole rather than the interests of a narrow ruling class or ruling elite and pressure groups are said to make important contributions to the democratic process.
Thus whereas political parties represent the general interests of voters across a range of issues pressure groups provide for the representation of citizens’ views on particular issues relating to their own personal well-being [as in the case of sectional groups] and/or to their particular causes for concern [as in the case of promotional or cause groups. ]As a result of the resources at their disposal pressure groups can represent individuals more effectively than they could do themselves, a point which may be especially relevant to more disadvantaged individuals such as the poor or the disabled and to minority groupings such as immigrants. It is possible that pressure groups can address controversial issues which political parties might initially seek to avoid and likely also that as new issues reach the political agenda new pressure groups can be formed to address these issues .Pressure groups enable their members and supporters to participate more fully in the political process on a continuing basis between general elections and this is likely to enhance political understanding and thereby to strengthen support for the liberal democratic system as a whole.
The existence of rival pressure groups for example supporting or opposing the increased use of nuclear power, liberalisation of abortion regulations or the war in Iraq will help to ensure that both sides of these controversial issues can be fully debated .Pressure groups may also sometimes be able to provide governments with important information not otherwise available to them thereby improving government decision making. For example governments may be aided in the development of health or education policy by information provided for example by the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association and the various teaching unions. Once policy has been decided relevant pressure groups may also encourage their members to carry out government policy and may also scrutinise government performance to assess whether policies are being implemented effectively. In summary pressure groups may contribute to government effectiveness by stimulating debate, by the provision of useful information by help with the implementation of policy and by scrutiny of government performance.
By the provision of opportunities for political participation via ”the normal channels” pressure groups may indirectly help to ensure that citizens do not turn to more radical methods in their attempts to pressurise the government so that pressure groups are seen as providing a safety valve preventing destabilising opposition to government and thereby increasing the overall legitimacy of the liberal democratic political system.
- How Pressure Groups may undermine the democratic process
However it has also been argued by more critical analysts that pressure group activity may in some cases undermine in various respects the principles of liberal democracy.
Marxists especially claim that liberal democratic governments favour disproportionately the interests of well funded, well organised pro-capitalist pressure groups because governments depend for their very survival on the profitability and efficiency of private capitalism on which in turn levels of employment, living standards and economic growth depend. Governments are therefore unlikely to introduce policies which are not supported by private enterprise. Furthermore pro-capitalist pressure groups are likely to be granted insider status which means that their negotiations with government are often secret which undermines both their own and the government’s accountability to the general public.
Furthermore most pressure groups, apart from trade unions, are joined mainly by relatively affluent middle class people and most pressure group leaders [who may not be chosen by especially democratic methods] are even more likely to be middle class although we cannot automatically assume that pressure groups’ middle class members and leaders will not attempt to represent the interests of other social groups.
However these points taken together do suggest that the poor and otherwise disadvantaged groups such as many disabled people and members of some ethnic minority groups are themselves relatively unlikely to be involved directly in pressure group activity and relatively more likely to be represented by under-funded outsider pressure groups which despite their best efforts may be unable to greatly influence government. Indeed it has also been argued that the existence of so many pressure groups persuades people to believe that they have influence when in fact they have very little.
It has been suggested that from the 1940s to the 1970s national political decision making operated within a framework of so-called corporatism or tripartism in which government decisions were influenced much more by business and trade union leaders than by the leaders of other pressure groups. Critics of corporatism have argued that it gave excessive political powers to business and trade union leaders who had not necessarily been fairly elected; that business and trade union leaders did not necessarily have the interests of the country at heart; that they each possessed considerable veto power enabling them to force governments to accept particular policies rather than facing ,say, a prolonged strike or reduced private sector investment; and that the excessive power of these groups undermined the pluralist claim that power was distributed among many separate pressure groups.
From the 1970s theorists influenced by New Right ideology accepted the above criticisms of corporatism. They argued in particular that the trade unions had excessive powers which they used to weaken the economy via damaging restrictive practices, inflationary wage demands and strikes and that welfare oriented pressure groups such as Shelter and the Child Poverty Action Group raised unrealistic expectations of increased spending on the welfare state which when they were not met served only to undermine confidence in government. Fewer criticisms were made of the activities of private industry although there were sometimes significant disagreements over economic policy but critics of New Right ideology rejected this analysis of both trade unions and welfare pressure groups..
We may conclude that theorists influenced by democratic pluralism have been most likely to praise the democratic activities of pressure groups but that theorists influenced by Marxism, Elitism, Corporatism and the New Right have adopted a more critical approach. While recognising the importance of these criticisms one only has to imagine a political system with no independent pressure groups to see that they do on balance make a significant contribution to the operation of liberal democracy.