Interest Groups

1
Interest Groups

• Why are groups so important?
• Can individuals made change acting alone?
• No, unless perhaps that person is extremely
  wealthy
• Aggregation of resources
• Money, members power
• Forming advocacy coalitions
• Collective voice louder than single voice
• Groups or special interest groups are sometimes
  viewed as a bad thing. Why?

2
Interest Groups Background

• Have been around since founding
• Madison mentions them in Federalist 10
• A relatively small number of groups until the
  1960s
• Major growth in interest groups in the 1960s
• Why?
• Diversity of population
• Diffusion of power more actors involved, so more
  room for lobbying
• Increasing number of agencies/programs more
  clients
• Weakening of political parties people turn to
  groups
• Technology Easier to form/maintain groups
• Increasing public demands (resources and rights)

3
Kinds of Interest Groups

• Institutional interest groups
• Membership because you belong to a particular
  institution, such as Univ. of Kentucky
• Share some interests with other students
• Affordable tuition
• Quality education
• Membership interest groups
• Groups you choose to join
• NRA, Green Peace, AARP

4
Types of Membership Groups

• Economic (private interest)
• Are primarily interested in benefits for members
• Example Labor Unions --gt The economic security
  of the groups members are directly at stake
• Public interest groups
• Seek to create broad benefits for everyone
• Example environmental groups
• Non-members of public interest groups are
  free-riders
• Other types of groups
• Churches, for example

5
Why Do People Join Groups?

• To gain some sort of a benefit.
• Economic well being or gain
• The desire to do good
• The desire to belong to or identify with a group
• The desire to find a way to make ones voice
  heard
• To get the freebies magazines, journals,
  calendars, etc.

6
What Do Groups Do?

• Lobbying (providing information)
• Lobbying individual members of Congress,
  Congressional Committees, members of bureaucracy
• Lobbyists can provide information that is
  unavailable or unknown to elected officials
• Has to be GOOD information, or else no one would
  listen to them again
• Support candidates
• Money to campaigns (directly or indirectly)
• Votes (mobilization of members to vote for
  candidate)

7
When Lobbying Fails

• ....Interest Groups turn to other strategies
• Mobilize members to take action
• Contacting members of Congress, boycotting (Mont.
  Bus Boycott), March on Washington
• Sue in court
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc
• Most prominent victory was Brown v. Board
• Public protests and direct action
• Riots, Protests (World Trade Organization)

8
Groups and Power

• We all know that some groups have more power than
  others
• Think of the most powerful interest groups in the
  United States
• ? AARP
• ? AFL-CIO (Labor Unions)
• ? NRA
• Why do some groups have more power than others?

9
Differences in Group Power

• Resources
• Money
• Information
• Size of membership
• Not just membership, but ability to mobilize
  members
• Voting, Contacting, Protest/Petition
• Reasons for membership
• Direct economic incentives
• Material inducements
• Congruence of goals with prevailing ideas and
  values
• If public opinion supports a groups cause

10
Free-rider Problem

• Public goods are goods that can benefit everyone,
  and from which no one can be excluded
• Two characteristics
• non-rival -- one person's enjoyment or
  consumption of the good does not prevent others
  from using it
• non-excludable -- people cannot be prevented from
  using the good
• Examples
• Roads, Natl defense, clean air, end of world
  hunger etc.

11
Free-rider Problem

• Non-excludability leads to the free rider
  problem
• A free rider is a consumer or producer that
  benefits from the actions of others without
  paying
• Because of the free rider problem, public goods
  are usually provided by the government, which
  levies taxes to pay for the goods

12
Overcoming Free-rider Problem

• Small Groups
• Peer pressure, solidarity incentives against
  free-riding
• Coercion
• Lobbying governmental jurisdictions to hire,
  approve, or certify only their members, to force
  free-riders to join
• Selective benefits
• Journals, consulting services, etc.
• AARP Worlds largest mail-order pharmacy,
  low-cost insurance, discounts on
  goods/products/services (all for 12.50/yr.)