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CHAPTER ELEVEN: INTEREST GROUPS

11.1 Motives for joining: material, social and purposive. Waves of interest group development and causes thereof (p. 210).

 

11.2 Classifying interest groups: power of protective groups. Growing influence of promotional groups. Peak associations as federations of protective groups Corporatism as state co-ordination of a hierarchy of groups in highly-organised societies (pp. 210-2).

 

11.3 Pluralism as a model of state-society relations. Pluralism as rule by the many and the absence of a governing elite. The state as a referee of group competition. The American example. Implications for ideas of majority rule (pp. 213-6).

 

11.4 In liberal democracies, movement from iron triangles (subgovernments) to issue networks (policy communities): who knows what, not just who knows whom (pp. 213-6).

 

11.5 Channels of access: the executive, bureaucracy, legislature and courts. Indirect influence through political parties and, especially for promotional groups, the media. Lobbying and its limits (pp. 216-20).

 

11.6 Conditions of influence: sanctions, legitimacy, membership (both size and density) and resources, political more than financial (pp. 220-3).

 

11.7 Interest groups in authoritarian states: leaders seek either to suppress or to incorporate organised groups, especially unions. Decay of corporate solution in countries such as Mexico. Some limited expression of group interests in later communism, including China. The role of corporatism in fascism (pp. 223-7).

 

11.8 Illiberal democracies: some orthodox representation for interests in non-controversial areas but political factors override in key sectors. Economic control as a source of patronage for the president. Personalized relationships discourage institutionalization of groups (divide and rule). The politics of ethnicity rather than interests. Weaknesses of civil society in Russia and discouragement of overseas-funded NGOs (pp. 227-8).