Pressure Groups
Chapter Thirty-Two
Syllabus topic 1.6.4, "Pressure group"
Pages 140 to 143 of 451
In one line
A pressure group is an organised body that tries to influence public policy without seeking to govern itself.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: a pressure group, also called an interest group, is an organised association of persons holding a common interest, which seeks to influence the decisions of government, legislature, administration and public opinion in favour of that interest, without contesting elections in its own name or seeking to assume governmental power itself. It is a social institution intermediate between the citizen and the state, and its existence is a feature of every society with organised government.
Characteristics
- An organised group, with membership and some structure, which distinguishes it from an unorganised public mood.
- A common interest, which may be narrow and material or broad and ideological.
- It seeks to influence, not to govern. This is the defining characteristic and the whole of the distinction from a party.
- It is selective in its concerns, usually confined to a limited field.
- It works with any government, since it has no permanent political allegiance, though in practice many are aligned.
- It operates continuously, not only at elections.
- It is usually formally outside government, though some operate within, as associations of officials do.
Types of pressure group
The classification most often asked for.
Institutional groups: bodies that are part of the machinery of government or of established institutions and act to protect their own interests, such as associations of civil servants, of teachers in public institutions, or of military veterans.
Associational groups: formed deliberately to advance a defined interest, with a constitution and membership. Trade unions, industry and trade associations, professional bodies such as bar associations and medical associations, farmers' organisations, students' unions.
Non-associational groups: interests based on identity rather than organisation, such as caste, kinship or community groupings, which act intermittently and without permanent machinery. Their prominence is a distinctive feature of Indian politics.
Anomic groups: spontaneous and often short-lived eruptions, demonstrations, riots, agitations, that press a demand without organisation. Whether these are properly called pressure groups at all is debated, and saying so improves an answer.
A cross-cutting classification distinguishes interest groups, pursuing a benefit for their own members, such as a trade union, from promotional or cause groups, pursuing an object that benefits people other than or wider than their members, such as an environmental or civil liberties organisation.
Techniques
Lobbying, the direct persuasion of legislators and officials, by meetings, memoranda and the supply of information.
Making representations to ministries, to committees and to inquiries.
Litigation, and this is where the law student's interest sharpens. Public interest litigation in India has made the courts a major channel for pressure group activity, allowing organisations to raise questions of environmental protection, prisoners' rights, bonded labour and access to services in a forum where they do not need numbers, only a case. The relaxation of standing requirements is what converted litigation into a pressure technique, because it allowed an organisation with no personal injury to bring the matter.
Pressure Groups
Participation in law making through the consultation processes on draft legislation and delegated legislation, and through evidence to parliamentary committees.
Mobilising public opinion: publicity, media campaigns, publications, research, and now social media.
Direct action: demonstrations, strikes, bandhs, non-cooperation, sit-ins, and at the extreme, obstruction. The legality of these varies and is itself contested.
Electoral support: endorsing, funding or campaigning for candidates favourable to the interest, without contesting in the group's own name.
Supplying expertise. The least visible and often the most effective technique: an official drafting a technical regulation needs information that the industry possesses, and the flow of that information shapes the outcome.
Parties and pressure groups compared
| Political party | Pressure group | |
|---|---|---|
| Aim | To capture governmental power | To influence those who hold it |
| Contests elections | Yes, in its own name | No, though it may support candidates |
| Range of concerns | The whole field of public policy | Usually a narrow field |
| Responsibility | Answerable to the whole electorate for governing | Answerable only to its own members |
| Membership | Broad, open, often mass | Defined by the interest |
| Ideology | Usually has a general programme | Usually has an interest rather than a programme |
| Continuity of allegiance | Fixed political identity | Can work with any government |
The overlap should be acknowledged, because examiners like the qualification. Some organisations do both: a trade union federation affiliated to a party, or a group that begins as a movement and becomes a party. The boundary is not always sharp, and the test is whether the body seeks office in its own name.
The functions they perform, and the objections
The case for them
They articulate interests in the period between elections, when a vote gives no guidance on any particular question.
They supply information and expertise that legislators and officials do not have.
They represent intensity as well as number. An election counts heads; a pressure group can convey that a small number of people care intensely about something a majority is indifferent to, which majority voting cannot express.
They provide a channel for participation to people who will never hold office.
They act as a check between elections, and in a system with a strong executive majority they may be a more effective check than a legislature.
They are the practical form of the freedom to form associations, without which those freedoms would be individual only.
Pressure Groups
The case against them
Unequal access. Groups with money and organisation are heard far more than the numerous and unorganised. Industry associations have permanent staff and researchers; agricultural labourers, domestic workers and slum residents do not. This is the standing objection, and it is a version of the point in [The Conflict Perspective] that formal equality coexists with unequal capacity to use it.
They are unrepresentative and unaccountable. A group speaks in the name of an interest but is answerable only to its own members, who may be a small proportion of those it claims to represent.
Sectional interest against the general interest. A group's success may impose a diffuse cost on everyone to secure a concentrated benefit for a few.
Methods. Where lobbying is unregulated, the line between persuasion, inducement and corruption is not drawn by anything but the criminal law, and in India there is no comprehensive statute regulating lobbying or requiring disclosure of it, which is a genuine gap worth naming.
Obstruction. Direct action can impose costs on people who are not parties to the dispute.
A worked example
A ministry publishes draft rules requiring a new safety certification for a category of small manufacturers.
The industry association meets officials, submits a memorandum with cost estimates, and offers a technical alternative. It has staff, data and access, and its representation is detailed.
A workers' federation submits a memorandum supporting the requirement and asks that inspection be strengthened, and organises a demonstration to attract notice.
A consumer organisation publishes research and briefs journalists, and threatens litigation if the rules are diluted.
Unorganised small workshop owners, who will bear the cost and are numerous, submit nothing, because they have no association, no information about the consultation and no capacity to respond within the period allowed.
The outcome will reflect the organisation of the interests rather than their weight in the population, and that sentence is the whole sociological point about pressure groups. It also identifies the standing argument for statutory consultation procedures and for publishing the responses received: they are attempts to correct for the unequal capacity to be heard.
Quick revision
- A pressure group seeks to influence government; a party seeks to capture it.
- Characteristics: organised, common interest, influence not office, selective concerns, works with any government, continuous, usually outside government.
- Types: institutional, associational, non-associational (identity based, prominent in India), anomic (spontaneous). Cross-cutting: interest groups and promotional groups.
- Techniques: lobbying, representations, litigation including public interest litigation, participation in law making, mobilising opinion, direct action, electoral support, and supplying expertise.
- The relaxation of standing is what made litigation a pressure technique in India.
- For: articulate interests between elections, supply expertise, represent intensity as well as number, provide participation, act as a check, and give practical form to the freedom of association.
- Against: unequal access, unrepresentative and unaccountable, sectional against general interest, unregulated methods, and obstruction. India has no comprehensive statute regulating lobbying.
Pressure Groups
Test yourself
1. Define a pressure group and distinguish it from a political party. An organised association of persons with a common interest which seeks to influence the decisions of government, legislature and administration in favour of that interest, without contesting elections in its own name or seeking office. A party differs in aiming to capture governmental power itself, in contesting elections, in addressing the whole field of public policy, and in being answerable to the whole electorate rather than only to its own members.
2. Give four types of pressure group with examples. Institutional groups, formed within the machinery of government or established institutions, such as associations of civil servants. Associational groups, deliberately formed to advance a defined interest, such as trade unions, industry associations and bar associations. Non-associational groups, resting on identity rather than organisation, such as caste and community groupings. Anomic groups, spontaneous and short-lived agitations without permanent organisation.
3. Describe the techniques pressure groups use, and say which is distinctive in India. Lobbying legislators and officials, submitting representations to ministries and committees, litigation, participation in consultation on draft legislation, mobilising public opinion through media and publication, direct action such as demonstrations and strikes, supporting candidates without contesting, and supplying technical expertise. Litigation is distinctively important in India, where the relaxation of standing requirements in public interest litigation allows an organisation with no personal injury to raise a public question in court.
4. Give the principal criticism of pressure group politics. Unequal access. Groups with money, permanent staff and technical capacity are heard far more effectively than the numerous but unorganised, so outcomes reflect the organisation of interests rather than their weight in the population. To this are added that such groups are answerable only to their own members while claiming to speak for wider interests, and that in India there is no comprehensive statute regulating or requiring disclosure of lobbying.
5. What can a pressure group express that an election cannot? Intensity. An election counts heads and treats every vote alike, so it registers how many people hold a view but not how strongly. A pressure group can convey that a small number care intensely about a question on which a majority is indifferent, and can keep that view before decision-makers continuously between elections rather than only at the moment of voting.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.