Unit 6C: Comparative UK and US Politics Alan Dobson Professor at the Department of Politics at the University of Dundee writes for the BBC Parliament

Special interest groups can exert a lot of political pressure

Democracies are often characterized as pluralist societies where a large number of groups, individuals and associations have impact politically, culturally, economically and socially by making demands on government.

The image held up is often similar to a multitude of anonymous demands in a market economy resulting in the efficient production of goods to meet needs and create a balance between supply and demand.

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Similarly in the political realm, government is seen as responding to aggregated demands made upon it by the people, primarily through political parties, but also through pressure groups.

If government does not respond to demands from the people the system can become dysfunctional leading to political unrest and demonstrations, and ultimately to revolution.

When the system is not dysfunctional then - as Madison in his famous Federalist Paper 10 argued - factions or pressure groups tend to balance each other out and create a stable representative system characterized by compromise and accommodation.

Different interests to push for

Groups are not always pressure groups, but all have the potential to become so. For example, a philatelist society may take no interest in politics at all, but that might change if there were a proposal to abolish stamps.

Pressure groups are not political parties.

They are generally single-issue groups or at most groups that are concerned with a tightly defined cluster of interests such as penal reform.

Characteristically it follows that pressure groups cross party lines.

If for example, in local elections in the USA, an anti-abortion pressure group would typically urge voters to scrutinize the record of candidates on this specific issue and if the candidate is found to be wanting then irrespective of party she or he should not be voted for.

Thus voters might find themselves voting for someone from the party they normally oppose.

This can happen in the UK too, but it tends to be less commonplace because of stricter party lines, and stronger party loyalty.

Examples of powerful pressure groups in British politics are the Anti-Corn Law League of the nineteenth century and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and its Committee of One Hundred in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the USA pressure groups are ubiquitous and play a much larger role.

Congressmen and women are more susceptible to pressure groups than their counterparts in the House of Commons and the Lords because party discipline and ties are not so strong. They have more scope to speak and act independently on behalf of a pressure group.

The gun lobby and the American Medical Association, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the right to life lobby are all examples of very powerful pressure groups.

� Professor Alan Dobson 2004
Department of Politics
University of Dundee