Hank Chau

AP U.S Government
November 26, 2015
Gareth Manning
Chapter 9 Outline
Interest Groups: Organizing for Influence
1. Interest group: faction and pressure group
a. Although nearly all interests in American society are organized to some degree
those associated with economic activity, particularly business activity, are by
far the most thoroughly organized.
b. Groups that do not have economic activity as their primary function often have
organizational difficulties.
c. Lobbying and electioneering are the traditional means by which groups
communicate with and influence political leaders.
d. The interest-group system over-represents business interests and fosters
policies that serve a groups interest more than the societys broader interests.
2. The Interest-Group System:
a. The nations political structure also contributes to group action.
b. The extraordinary number of interest groups in the United States does not
mean that the nations various interests are equally well-organized.
c. Economic Groups: All such organizations engage in political activity as a
means of promoting and protecting their economic groups.
d. Business groups: All large corporations and many smaller ones are politically
active.
i. Labor groups: Labor Unions,, etc.
ii. Farm groups: American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers
Union.
iii. Professional groups: American Medical Association (AMA), American
Bar Association (ABA)
e. Citizens Groups: Joined together by material incentive such as jobs or higher
wages.
f. The Organizational Edge: Economic Groups vs. Citizens Groups:
i. Economic Groups:
1. Advantages: Economic activity provides the organization with
the resources necessary for political action.
2. Disadvantages: Persons within the group may not support
leaders political efforts because they did not join the group for
political reasons.
ii. Citizens Groups:
1. Advantages: Members are likely to support leaders political
efforts because they joined the group in order to influence
policy.
2. Disadvantages: The group has to raise funds, especially for its
political activities. Potential members may choose not to join
the group because their individual contribution may be too
small to affect the groups success one way or the other.
iii. Unequal Access to resources:

1. Private (individual) good: A benefit such as a job that is given

directly to a particular individual.
2. Collective (public) goods: As an incentive most for
membership. These are goods that to all, and cannot be granted
or withheld on an individual basis.
3. Free-rider problem: Individuals can obtain the good even if
they do not contribute to the groups effort.
iv. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Size: Although citizens groups
have proliferated in recent decades, the organization muscle in
American politics rests primarily with economic groups.
3. Inside Lobbying: Seeking influence through official contracts:
a. Lobbying: a term that refers broadly to efforts by groups to influence public
policy through contact with public officials.
b. Acquiring Access to Officials: Lobbying once depended significantly on
tangible inducements, sometimes including bribes.
c. Lobbying Congress: The targets inside lobbying are officials of all three
government branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.
i. Lobbying the Executive Branch: As the range of federal policy has
expanded, lobbying of the executive branch has grown in importance.
ii. Lobbying the courts: Judicial ruling in areas such as education and
civil rights have made interest groups recognize that they may be able
to achieve their policy goals through the courts.
d. Webs of Influence: Groups in the policy process:
i. Iron Triangles: Small and informal but relatively stable set of
bureaucrats, legislators, and lobbyists who seek to develop policies
beneficial to a particular interest.
ii. Issue Networks: Issue networks: An informal grouping of officials,
lobbyists, and policy specialists who come together to temporarily
around a policy problem.
4. Outside Lobbying: Seeking influence through public pressure:
a. Outside Lobbying: Bringing constituency pressure to bear on policymakers.
b. Constituency Advocacy: Grassroots Lobbying: Pressure designed to convince
government officials that a groups policy position has popular support.
c. Electoral Action: Votes and Money: Reward your allies and punish your
enemies
d. Political Action Committees (PACs): A PAC receives money for political
campaigns, because these funds cant be directly sent to political candidates.
e. Super PACs (also called independent-expenditure-only-committees): Created
by Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission (FEC): Can accept
contributions of whatever amounts.
5. The Group System: Indispensable But Biased:
a. The Contribution of Groups to Self-government: Pluralism: public interest as
priority.
b. Flaws in Pluralism: Interest-Group Liberalism and Economic Bias: Interestgroup liberalism: The tendency of officials to support the policy demands of
the interest group or groups that have a special stake in a policy.
c. A Madisonian Dilemma: Federalist No.10s solution to the problem of
factionalism is the current electoral system. But ironically, as parties formed,
his solution (the electoral system) is now the problem of factionalism.