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INTEREST GROUPS AND CORPORATIONS

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The President makes a decision each year about the most favored nation (MFN) ... McCain Feingold bill (2002) Interest Groups, Corporations, and Democracy ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: INTEREST GROUPS AND CORPORATIONS


1
Chapter 7
  • INTEREST GROUPS AND CORPORATIONS

2
Lobbying For China
  • The President makes a decision each year about
    the most favored nation (MFN) status of a
    particular nation, which Congress can override by
    a two-thirds vote.
  • Certain nations must seek most favored status to
    avoid extremely high tariffs and other
    restrictions on their products.
  • While Presidential determination about Chinas
    trade status prevailed for the past 16 years, the
    debate in Congress has intensified.

3
  • President Clinton succeeded in the face of the
    political coalition that developed in 1997 to
    oppose granting MFN to China.
  • The determination of trade policy toward China is
    similar to how many federal government policies
    are determined.
  • The opening vignette in the text illustrates the
    importance of interest groups and corporations in
    shaping what government does in the United States.

4
Interest Groups in a Democratic Society
  • Roles of interest groups
  • Interest groups are private organizations that
    try to shape public policy.
  • Interest groups try to influence the behavior of
    political decision makers.

5
The Evils of Factions
  • The American public has traditionally viewed
    special-interest groups as narrowly
    self-interested.
  • James Madison warned of the dangers and
    divisiveness of factions (his term for interest
    groups) in The Federalist, No. 10.
  • The theme of the evils of factions has recurred
    throughout American history.

6
Interest Group Democracy The Pluralist Argument
  • Many political scientists believe that interest
    groups serve as important instruments to attain
    democracy and serve the public interest.
  • Pluralists believe the interest group system is
    democratic because people are free to join or to
    organize groups that reflect their own interests.

7
Interest Group Formation
  • Escalation in the number of interest groups
  • Interest groups formation tied to the existence
    of certain structural factors
  • When there are many interests
  • When the political culture supports the pursuit
    of private interests
  • Diversity of interests in the United States

8
Rules of the political game in the United States
encourage the formation of interest groups.
  • The First Amendment guarantees citizens basic
    rights that are essential to the ability of
    citizens to form organizations.
  • Government is organized in such a way that
    decision makers are relatively accessible to
    interest groups.
  • Because of federalism, checks and balances, and
    the separation of powers, there is no dominant
    center of decision making.

9
Interest Group Formation and the Growth in
Government
  • As government takes on more responsibilities, it
    has a greater impact on facets of economic,
    social, and personal life.
  • People, groups, and organizations are
    increasingly affected by the actions of
    government.

10
Disturbance Theory of Interest Group Formation
  • The proliferation of interests does not seem to
    lead to the formation of groups unless these
    interests are threatened in some way.
  • The disturbance theory is illustrated by the
    success of the Christian Coalition which was
    created at a time when many evangelical
    Christians felt threatened by family breakdown,
    an increase in the number of abortions, and the
    sexual revolution.

11
Incentives
  • Some social scientists argue that people do not
    form groups when their common interests are
    threatened unless the group can give back some
    selective, material benefit to them.
  • A selective, material benefit is a tangible
    benefit that is available to members but not to
    nonmembers.

12
  • If someone can get the benefit without joining
    the group (known as a free-rider), then there may
    be no purpose in joining.
  • The free-rider problem tends to occur when a
    group is interested in some collective good that
    benefits everyone and not just members.
  • There has been a proliferation of public interest
    and ideological groups, which suggests purposes
    or incentives other than material and selective
    incentives.

13
What Interests Are Represented
  • Interest groups may be classified by the type of
    interest they represent.
  • Public interests are interests that are connected
    in one way or another to the general welfare of
    the community.
  • Private interests are associated with benefits
    for some fraction of the community.

14
Private Interest Groups
  • Business
  • The Professions
  • Labor

15
Public Interest Groups
  • Public interest groups are sometimes called
    citizens groups.
  • They try to get government to do things that will
    benefit the general public rather than the direct
    material interests of their own members.
  • There has been substantial growth in the number
    and influence of public interest groups since the
    late 1960s.
  • Public-interest groups generally do not use
    material incentives.

16
What Interest Groups Do
  • Interest groups are composed of people with
    common goals or interests who try to convey the
    views of some sector of society and to influence
    government on their behalf.
  • There are two basic types of interest group
    activity the inside game and the outside game.

17
The Inside Game
  • The inside game involves direct contact of the
    interest group representative and government
    officials.
  • The politics of insiders, of the old-boy network,
    of one-on-one persuasion in which a skilled
    lobbyist tries to persuade a decision maker to
    accept the point of view of the interest group
  • Lobbying Congress
  • Lobbying the executive branch
  • Lobbying the courts

18
The Outside Game
  • The outside game is an indirect form of influence
    that involves interest group efforts to mobilize
    public opinion, voters, and important
    contributors.
  • Evidence of increased importance compared to
    inside lobbying (though inside lobbying still
    tends to be more directly effective)
  • Mobilizing membership
  • Organizing the district
  • Shaping public opinion
  • Involvement in campaigns and elections

19
Possible Flaws in the Pluralist Heaven
  • Representational inequalities
  • Resource inequalities
  • Political action committees (PACs)
  • soft money
  • independent expenditures
  • Access inequality
  • Capture
  • Interest group liberalism
  • Iron triangles, or subgovernments
  • Issue networks

20
The Special Place of Corporations
  • Scholars have found that corporations dominate
    other interest groups in the policy process
  • number of interest organizations
  • number of lobbyists
  • level of resources
  • shaping public perceptions
  • traditionally held in high regard, and viewed as
    linked to healthy economy
  • mobility
  • nonetheless, corporate power waxes and wanes
    within its overall privileged position

21
Curing the Mischief of Factions
  • James Madison was thinking primarily about the
    tyranny of majority factions when he referred to
    the mischief of factions.
  • We now know that the politics of faction is
    usually the province of narrow and privileged
    interests rather than majorities.
  • This creates problems with respect to democracy.

22
  • Tools used to solve some of the problems of
    factions
  • Disclosure
  • Regulation
  • Ethics in Government Act (1978)
  • Control
  • McCain Feingold bill (2002)

23
Interest Groups, Corporations, and Democracy
  • Many worry that these reforms do not get to the
    heart of the problem.
  • Some political scientists have suggested that we
    focus our efforts on strengthening institutions
    of majoritarian democracy such as political
    parties, the Presidency, and Congress.
  • Efforts to reform the interest group system may
    be frustrated by the inescapable fact that highly
    unequal resources eventually will find their way
    into our political life.
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