Interest Groups and Pressure Groups

The test that separates them is not what the group asks for; it is who benefits if it succeeds. If success benefits the members as members, it is sectional. If success benefits people who are not members, it is promotional.

By organisation: Almond and Powell's four types

Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell's classification is standard in Indian syllabuses and is worth knowing by name, because it fits Indian conditions better than the two-way cut.

Anomic groups. Spontaneous, unorganised and usually short-lived eruptions: a riot, a spontaneous demonstration, a crowd that gathers after an incident and disperses in a week. They have no continuing structure and no office bearers, and they influence policy by disorder rather than by argument.

Non-associational groups. Groups that exist by identity rather than by organisation: caste, kinship, region, language, religion. Nobody joins them and nobody leaves. They act intermittently, often through informal leaders, and in India they are among the most consequential influences on policy.

Institutional groups. Groups that are formally part of the state or of another organisation and use that position to press their own interest: the armed forces, the civil services, the police associations, and the employees' bodies within a public undertaking. They are powerful because they are inside the machine and because government cannot function without their cooperation.

Associational groups. Formally organised bodies with a specific purpose, a membership roll, a constitution and professional staff. Trade unions, industry chambers, professional associations. This is the type most people mean by "interest group", and in a developed system it does most of the work.

By duration and level

Some groups are permanent and some are formed for a single issue and dissolve when it is settled. Some operate at the level of a village or a ward, some in a State capital, some in Delhi, some internationally.

What interest groups actually do

They articulate interests. Almond's term. Somebody has to turn a scattered discontent into a stated demand, and groups are the machinery for doing it. Without them a government hears noise.

They supply information. A department drafting a rule on drug pricing does not know the industry as well as the industry does. That is the honest core of lobbying, and it is why governments consult groups even when they distrust them.

They represent between elections. A voter votes once in five years on everything at once. A group presses on one thing continuously.

They train and recruit. Group leaders become political leaders, which is one route into Indian politics.

They implement. Governments increasingly deliver services through organisations that began as interest groups.

Interest groups in India

The Indian pattern is different enough from the Western textbook picture that a good answer says so.

Non-associational groups are unusually strong. Caste associations, community organisations and language groups influence recruitment, reservation, education, personal law and public order, and they can deliver both opinion and votes. No Western classification has anything quite like the caste association.

Many associational groups are attached to parties. The large trade union federations and several student and farmer organisations are affiliated to political parties, which makes them powerful and simultaneously limits their independence, because they cannot press a demand that embarrasses their party. This is the single most distinctive feature of Indian interest group politics.

Business is organised and effective, through chambers of commerce and industry associations that are consulted formally on legislation.

Direct action is a normal method, not an exceptional one. The bandh, the road blockade, the rail roko and the mass rally are ordinary instruments, and the courts have had to draw lines around them.

Litigation is a standing channel. Public interest litigation has given Indian groups a route into policy that groups in most systems do not have.

And the weakest interests are the least organised. Agricultural labourers, domestic workers, migrant workers and the urban poor are numerous and hard to organise, which is the standing criticism of pluralist theory: the system responds to organised interests, and organisation is not equally available.

A worked example

A State proposes to raise the age of sale of tobacco products from eighteen to twenty-one.

The tobacco traders' federation is a sectional associational group. It writes to the Minister, commissions a study on the effect on small retailers, and points out how many voters run paan shops.

A public health foundation is a promotional associational group. Its members gain nothing personally. It publishes data on age of initiation and gets its case into the newspapers.

The State's own excise officers' association is an institutional group. It quietly points out that enforcement will need staff the department does not have, and that objection may kill the proposal more effectively than the traders' campaign.

A students' organisation affiliated to a party demonstrates in favour. Its position is genuine, and it is also convenient for its party.

A crowd that gathers outside a shop after a child is hospitalised is an anomic group. It has no structure, it is gone in a fortnight, and while it lasts it makes the front page.

Five groups, four of Almond's types, and each one exercises a different kind of pressure on the same file.

Distinctions that carry marks

What interest groups are NOT

They are not political parties. A party seeks office and accepts responsibility for governing the whole; a group presses one interest and is accountable only to its members. The line is crossed when a group contests elections to govern, and Indian politics has several examples of groups that did exactly that.

They are not necessarily undemocratic. The pluralist argument is that competition between many groups is itself a form of democracy, because it keeps government continuously in touch with organised opinion. The criticism is not that groups exist but that the competition is unequal.

They are not the same as social movements. A movement is looser, larger, often without formal membership, and aims at changing society rather than at winning a specific policy. Movements often produce groups; the two are not the same thing.

They are not always outside the state. Institutional groups are inside it, which is what makes them formidable.

Quick revision

1. Definition: an organised body sharing an interest, seeking to influence public policy, and NOT seeking office. Four features, and the fourth is decisive.
2. Interest group describes what it is; pressure group describes what it does. Interchangeable in an answer.
3. Sectional against promotional: the test is who benefits if the group succeeds.
4. Almond and Powell: anomic, non-associational, institutional, associational.
5. Functions: interest articulation, information, continuous representation, recruitment, implementation.
6. In India: non-associational groups are unusually strong; many associational groups are party-affiliated; direct action and litigation are normal channels; the poorest interests are the least organised.

Test yourself

1. Define an interest group and give its essential features. An organised association of persons holding a common interest or opinion who seek to influence the formation and administration of public policy in its favour without seeking to capture office. Its features are a shared interest, some organisation, an attempt to influence policy, and the absence of any attempt to govern. The last is decisive: a body that contests elections in order to hold office has become a political party.

2. Distinguish sectional from promotional groups. A sectional group represents a section of society and pursues its material interests, so its membership is limited to that section and success benefits the members as members. A promotional group promotes a cause from which the members may gain nothing, so its membership is open to anybody who agrees and success benefits people outside it. The test is not what is demanded but who gains if the demand succeeds.

3. Set out Almond and Powell's classification with an Indian example of each. Anomic groups are spontaneous and unorganised, such as a crowd that gathers after an incident and disperses within a fortnight. Non-associational groups exist by identity rather than by enrolment, such as caste and community associations. Institutional groups are formally part of the state and press their own interest from inside it, such as a service association within the administration. Associational groups are formally organised for a stated purpose, such as a trade union or an industry chamber.

4. What is distinctive about interest groups in India? Non-associational groups founded on caste, community, language and region are unusually influential, and no Western classification has an exact counterpart to the caste association. Many associational groups, particularly trade unions and student bodies, are affiliated to political parties, which makes them strong and simultaneously prevents them from pressing demands that embarrass their party. Direct action and public interest litigation are ordinary channels rather than exceptional ones.

5. "Interest groups make democracy more democratic." Discuss. The pluralist case is that they do: they turn scattered discontent into stated demands, they represent people continuously between elections when a vote settles everything at once, and competition among many groups keeps government in touch with organised opinion. The objection is that the competition is unequal. Organisation costs money, time and literacy, so business, professions and organised labour are heard while agricultural labourers, domestic workers and the urban poor are not, and a system responsive to organised interests is responsive to the already advantaged.