Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 Interest Groups and Political Parties

2. Introduction • Group activity is particularly logical in a democracy, where majorities and pluralities rule. • Politics is an arena for group conflict. • Political parties in America perform many vital functions.

3. Interest Groups in American Politics • Interest groups are associations of people who hold common views and work to influence what government does. • These groups share the objective of looking out for their members’ political interests, but differ in what those interests are. • Interest groups are so dominant in America that many see the American system as a pluralist democracy designed to manage the interplay of group interests. • Interest groups are both praised for contributing to democracy and condemned as a threat to the public good.

4. Characteristics of Interest Groups • Size • Interest groups vary dramatically in size. • Generally, the bigger the group, the more effective and powerful it is. • Membership • Groups may have formal or informal membership procedures. • Generally, the stronger the bond between member and group, the more effective the group will be. • Organization • Generally, the stronger a group’s internal organization is, the more success it will have in promoting its interests. • Groups differ in whether they are democratic or autocratic.

5. Characteristics of Interest Groups (continued) • Ties to Politics • Interest groups may be essentially nonpolitical (a bowling league), solely political (a political action committee), or have a mixture of political and nonpolitical activities (Roman Catholic church, National Rifle Association). • Agreement with Societal Consensus • Reactionary groups are far to the right. • Radical groups are far to the left. • Groups that stay within the American mainstream tend to be more effective.

6. What Interest Groups Do • Influencing Opinion • The major channel used by interest groups to create public support is the mass media. • Recently, interest groups have begun using direct mail to get support. • Involvement in the Electoral Process: PACs • Political action committees (PACs) channel money from interest group members to sympathetic political candidates. • Most PACs are multi-candidate committees and formally independent of the candidates they support. • The Federal Election Act of 1974 put limits on the amount of money individuals and groups can contribute to campaigns, making group contributions the more attractive option. This led to the proliferation of PACs.

7. The Proliferation of PACS, 1974-2010 The number of political action committees has soared since the post-Watergate campaign reforms made them the preferred vehicle for channeling money from interest group members to political candidates.

8. What Interest Groups Do (continued) • PACs have become a controversial issue in American politics. • Involvement in the Legislative Process: Lobbying • Lobbying is the attempt to influence legislation in Congress. • Lobbyists provide information, advice, and testimony to congress. • Lobbyists are highly paid, respected, and influential. • Involvement in the Administrative and Regulatory process • When group interests appear to be threatened, groups meet with agency officials and ask legislators sympathetic to the “true intent” of the legislation to intercede with erring bureaucrats.

9. What Interest Groups Do (continued) • The close ties between interest groups, administrators, and legislators is referred to as the “iron triangle.” • The close ties between interest groups, administrators, and legislators is referred to as the “iron triangle.” • Involvement in the Judicial Process • Interest groups can do the following: • Affect the selection of judges • File class action suits • Encourage individuals to take legal action • File amicus curiae briefs

10. Major Interest Groups • Economic Groups • Business advances its interests through groups that represent commerce, corporations, and various professions. • Labor is primarily represented through unions. • The AFL-CIO is an umbrella organization of unions. • Labor union influence on the Democratic Party is diminishing. • Non-union workers lack organization and influence. • The farm lobby is no longer as influential as it once was, but it still can’t be ignored.

11. Major Interest Groups (continued) • Social Groups • Gender based – Women comprise one of the largest potential interest groups in the United States. • NOW is a group that presses for economic and political equality for women • The women’s movement is closely tied to politics. • Race based –Tthe most prominent biologically based interest group in the United States is the African American population. • African Americans have pursued their interests politically, working predominantly through the Democratic Party. • The NAACP is the most visible, official African American interest group. • African Americans have increased their number of registered voters and elective office holders.

12. Types of Major Interest Groups The table includes only a few of the thousands of groups that exist. In addition, note that a group may be of more than one type. This occurs when economic groups, for example, make statements about social and ideological questions.

13. Female, African American, and Latino National and State Legislators and Executives, 1975-2009 The increasing numbers of women, African Americans, and Latinos elected to public offices, such as the U.S. Senate and House and state legislatures and to state executive offices in the last 30 years, demonstrates how the political process has opened up to members of these groups.

14. Major Interest Groups (continued) • Religious groups • Religious groups, especially the Christian Right, have become active in political issues, especially in regard to the recent abortion controversy. • Most religious groups do not employ registered lobbyists. • Ideological groups • Groups that pursue a broad, explicitly political, agenda almost exclusively • Single-Issue groups • Single-issue groups, such as those comprising the right-to-life movement, have narrow agendas and limited political goals. • Single-issue groups are often controversial, and some see them as a threat to democracy because they usually refuse to compromise. • Public interest groups • These groups represent broad notions of the public interest. • Examples include Ralph Nader (consumerism) and Common Cause.

15. Perspectives on Interest Groups • Interest groups as the foundation of democracy • Interest groups promote democracy through competition and representation. • Cross-cutting cleavages stabilize group competition. • Cross-cutting cleavage is the overlapping of interest group memberships that protects against polarization. • Interest group elitism • The structures of interest groups may be undemocratic. • Big, powerful groups dominate small, weak ones.

16. Perspectives on Interest Groups (continued) • Interest Groups Versus the Public Interest • Interest groups are criticized most when seen as using politics to achieve selfish goals. • Many people favor more regulation of interest group activities. • Interest group gridlock • Too many interest groups, refusing to compromise, can result in interest group gridlock

17. The Idea of a Political Party • What Is a Political Party? • A political party attempts to influence public policy by placing its own members into government positions. • Interest groups and parties are different in that interest groups do not run their own candidates for office. • They are similar in that they both have members who share common political views or objectives, and may engage in collective political activities.

18. What Do Parties Do? • Parties perform important political socialization functions: • Providing a means for psychological identification with the world of politics • Helping to structure people’s perceptions of politics • Educating and mobilizing people about politics • Parties perform important electoral functions: • Bringing individuals with diverse political needs together around a commonly supported candidate • Simplifying the set of alternatives between which voters must choose

19. What Do Parties Do? (continued) • Complementing the legal process for choosing public officials. • Recruiting and training political leaders. • Parties perform important governmental functions: • Giving coherence to public policy • Helping make government more responsive • They are also a major source of political stability.

20. Party Identification by Income

21. Basic Characteristics of the American Party System • It’s a two-party system. • Plurality/majority elections encourage a two-party system, as exemplified by the U.S. • Alternatively, proportional representation—the awarding of legislative seats in proportion to the percentage of votes a party receives—encourages the growth of more than two parties. This system is more common in other countries, like France and Italy. • Voter opinions tend to form clusters near the ideological center. This often fosters two similar parties that vie for the same voters. • Third parties do have a role. • They have forced major parties to address new issues, and they have influenced election results.

22. American Political Parties Since 1789 The chart indicates the years during which parties either ran presidential candidates or held national conventions. The life span for many political parties can only be approximated because parties existed at the state or local level before they ran candidates in the presidential elections and continued to exist at local levels after they ceased running presidential candidates. For example, in the year 2008, at least a dozen parties ran a candidate for president in one or more states; but only six candidates were on the ballot in over half of the states: John McCain (Republican), Barack Obama (Democrat), Bob Barr (Libertarian), Cynthia McKinny (Green), Chuck Baldwin (Constitution), and Ralph Nader, who ran as an Independent.

23. A Complex Party Structure • Parties and the Levels of Government: National, State, and Local • Party structures parallels the federal system. • However, the relationship between party levels is not strictly hierarchical. • Parties and Their Components: Formal, Electoral, and Governmental • Formal party organization: the people who work for the party • At the national level, the party convention chooses the presidential candidate, writes the platform, and designates the national committee.

24. A Complex Party Structure (continued) • Formerly, state and local political machines used patronage and the spoils system to augment their power. • State and local party structures are similar to that of the national parties. • A party psychologically and socially includes the people in the electorate who support it. • Party identification is a psychological attachment to a party by a citizen. • A party’s coalition consists of the groups of people who support it. • The party in government consists of the people from that party who hold public office. • Parties in the legislature organize committees and leaders. • The executive party and judicial party are informal and less visible.

25. Party Identification of the American Electorate 1960-2010 The Democratic Party held a substantial edge in the party identification from the 1960s into the 1970s; however, Republican resurgence, beginning in the 1980s, eroded that edge.

26. How the American Party System Developed • Introduction • Although not mentioned in the Constitution, parties do have explicit legal status. • Four specific realignments throughout history have created five different party systems. • The First American Party System (1789-1824) Federalists and Antifederalists • Major issues of this period: • Should government be centralized and elite? (Federalist) Or decentralized and open? (Antifederalist)

27. How the American Party System Developed • Government role in the economy • Industrialization vs. agriculture • Major parties: • Federalists, dominant until about 1800 • Antifederalists (Democratic Republicans), ascended after 1800 • The Second American Party System (1824-1860) Democrats and Whigs • Major issues of this period: • National bank and states’ rights

28. How the American Party System Developed • Major parties: • Whigs had a vision of a nation modernized by government-backed commerce. • Democrats had a vision of an agrarian democracy. • By the late 1820s, issues of national bank and states’ rights split the Democratic Republican Party, forming the Whig Party and the Democratic Party. • Slavery (and soon the Civil War, as well) undid Whig Party and Democratic Party alignments, instead dividing both parties into northern and southern branches.

29. How the American Party System Developed • The Third American Party System (1860-1896) Democrats and the new Republicans • Major issues of this period: • Slavery • Government as a promoter of commerce • After the Civil War, the Republican Party established itself as the party of business. • Competition between the parties characterized this party system and divided congressional and presidential control.

30. How the American Party System Developed • The Fourth American Party System (1896-1932) Republican Ascendancy • Major issues of this period: • Capitalist system allowed free reign • The 1893 depression sparked the free silver movement, led by William Jennings Bryan, and pitted the Democratic rural, poor, and workers against the Republican urban, industrial, and elite. • Except for the Wilson years, Republicans were dominant until 1929.

31. How the American Party System Developed • The Fifth American Party System (1932-1968) Democratic Ascendancy • Major issues of this period: • Social welfare • Government involvement in the economy • FDR’s reaction to the Great Depression issued in an era of government responsibility—both for restoring and maintaining economic prosperity, and ensuring the people’s basic well being. • The Democratic Party remained dominant from 1932-1968.

32. The State of the American Party System: Decline or Resurgence? • Parties in Decline • In the 1970s and 1980s, both national and state party organizations appeared to lose their viability. • At the same time, fewer people identified with a specific party, and the existing coalitions were coming apart. • Through the 1970s and 1980s, party discipline and coordination in government seemed to deteriorate.

33. The Causes of Party Decline • More jobs fell under the heading of “civil service” and patronage became more difficult, making it harder for politicians to marshal support. • The rise of the mass media eliminated the need for parties to act as intermediaries between candidates and the public. • PACs and public financing of campaigns weakened the parties’ role as fundraisers. • Personal campaign organizations have bypassed traditional party machinery. • Single-issue interest groups upset the parties’ function of coalition-building. • The rise of the public welfare system reduced citizens’ personal obligation to the party for help in the past. (Formerly, faithful party members might receive food, money, or shelter from neighborhood party organizations.) • Declining party socialization has reduced people’s tendency to identify with their parents’ political parties.

34. The Consequences of Party Decline • The following occur if parties decline too much: • Citizens aren’t socialized into politics. • Electoral alternatives become confusing, creating incoherent policy proposals. • Interests are not integrated, resulting in fragmentation and paralysis. • Campaigns and elections become fragmented and personalized. • Power is not coordinated, resulting in few common bonds of philosophy or loyalty. • Government is not responsible, so accountability breaks down.

35. Parties in Resurgence • A number of new studies found evidence of the parties in resurgence. • Formal party organization • National party organizations use computerized systems for polling, conducting direct mail campaigns, and raising money—especially “soft money.” • The rejuvenation of party organization started with the Republicans, while the Democrats are trying to catch up. • The Party in the Electorate • Party identification is slowly rising again. • A reformation of new party coalitions may be occurring. • The Party in Government • Congressional campaign committees are growing stronger. • However, party discipline has not improved.

36. Parties in Resurgence (continued) • Reasons for Party Resurgence • Parties have adapted to the changing political environment. • Parties can still supply candidates with needed resources. • Consequences of Party Resurgence • Rejuvenated national party organizations may strengthen state and local organizations. • Strong party organizations may help revive the party in the electorate and the party in the government. • In a resurgent party system, technology will replace party workers.

37. The Future of the American Party System • The Prospects for Realignment • Some argue that Republican dominance at the presidential level may be solidifying and expanding their dominance to other levels. • Others argue Republican dominance of the presidency may end as major conservative issues fade. • The Future of Resurgence • Recent changes in the party system may mark a broad and permanent change based on centralization, the importance of the media, and the demand for campaign money. • Parties have shown the ability to sufficiently adapt to changing circumstances.