{"id":706,"date":"2015-07-21T17:11:29","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T17:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/masteryusgovernment1x6xmaster\/?post_type=chapter&p=706"},"modified":"2015-07-21T17:29:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T17:29:24","slug":"reading-interest-groups-and-the-political-system","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/odessa-usgovernment-1\/chapter\/reading-interest-groups-and-the-political-system\/","title":{"raw":"Reading: Interest Groups and the Political System","rendered":"Reading: Interest Groups and the Political System"},"content":{"raw":"

Learning Objectives<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n

After reading this section, you should be able to answer the following questions:<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\t
  1. What factors determine an interest group\u2019s success?<\/li>\r\n\t
  2. What are the levels of influence that interest groups can possess in their relations with policymakers?<\/li>\r\n\t
  3. What is pluralism?<\/li>\r\n\t
  4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of business interest groups?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    In the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy<\/em>, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argue that the activities of interest groups, notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee<\/a>, are one reason why, since World War II, the United States has provided more direct economic and military support to Israel than any other ally and pursues a policy of preserving and enhancing Israel\u2019s security.[footnote]John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy<\/em> (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007). See also the critique by Robert C. Lieberman, \u201cThe \u2018Israel Lobby\u2019 and American Politics,\u201d Perspectives on Politics<\/em> 7, no. 2 (June 2009): 235\u201357; the rebuttal by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, \u201cThe Blind and the Elephant in the Room: Robert Lieberman and the Israel Lobby,\u201d Perspectives on Politics<\/em> 7, no. 2 (June 2009): 259\u201373; and the rejoinder by Robert Lieberman, \u201cRejoinder to Mearsheimer and Walt,\u201d Perspectives on Politics<\/em> 7, no. 2 (June 2009): 275\u201381.[\/footnote]<\/span> This raises the question of why interest groups succeed or fail to achieve their policy objectives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n

    Why Interest Groups Are (or Are Not) Successful<\/h2>\r\n

    The main factors determining an interest group\u2019s effectiveness are its assets, objectives, alliances, the visibility of its involvement in policy decisions, and its responses to political change and crises, plus, of course, the media\u2019s depiction of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n

    Assets<\/h3>\r\n

    Successful interest groups have prestige, respected leadership, political skills, and ample finances. The Business Roundtable, composed of the chief executives of the two hundred leading corporations, has them all and thus has access to and influence on policymakers. Monetary assets allow groups to contribute to political campaigns through their political action committees (PACs).<\/p>\r\n

    The status and distribution of an interest group\u2019s members also contribute to its success. Automobile dealers are influential and live, as do their employees, in congressional districts across the country. After President Barack Obama proposed putting automobile loans under the oversight of a new federal consumer authority aimed at protecting borrowers from abusive lender, the dealers\u2019 lobbying arm, the National Automobile Dealers Association<\/a>, organized opposition, including trips to Washington for some of the eighteen thousand dealers to meet and plead their case with their legislators.[footnote]Eric Lichtblau, \u201cAuto Dealers Campaign to Fend Off Regulation<\/a>,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, May 16, 2010, accessed March 23, 2011.[\/footnote]\u00a0<\/span>Congress exempted auto dealers from the regulation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Objectives<\/h3>\r\n

    The ease or difficulty of achieving a group\u2019s goals can determine its success. Preventing legislation from being enacted is usually easier than passing it. In a comprehensive study of interest group activities during the last two years of the Clinton administration and the first two years of the George W. Bush administration, researchers found that although some advocates succeed eventually in changing policy, \u201c[t]he vast bulk of lobbying in Washington has to do not with the creation of new programs, but rather with the adjustment of existing programs or with the maintenance of programs just as they are.\u201d[footnote]Frank R. Baumgartner, Jeffrey M. Berry, Marje Hojnacki, David C. Kimball, and Beth L. Leech, Lobbying and Policy Change: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why<\/em> (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 240. See also R. Kenneth Godwin and Barry J. Seldon, \u201cWhat Corporations Really Want from Government: The Public Provision of Private Goods,\u201d in Interest Group Politics<\/em>, 6th ed., ed. Allan J. Cigler and Burdett A. Loomis (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2002), 205\u2013224.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n

    Moreover, legislation enacted over the opposition of powerful interest groups, tends to be watered down. Or the political costs of its passage are so heavy that its proponents in the presidential administration and Congress are discouraged from challenging the groups again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Alliances<\/h3>\r\n

    Interest groups sometimes cooperate with other groups to help them achieve a policy objective they could not accomplish alone. A coalition expands resources, broadens expertise, and adds to the credibility of the policy objectives. Alliances are often of natural allies such as the National Restaurant Association<\/a>, the American Nursery and Landscape Association<\/a>, and the National Council of Agricultural Employers<\/a>, who united to oppose restrictions on immigration and penalties on businesses that employ illegal immigrants. But they can be made up of strange bedfellows, as when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) allied to oppose the U.S. Department of Justice putting raw, unsubstantiated data into a national computer network. For the ACLU, it was a violation of people\u2019s right to privacy; for the NRA, it was a move toward denying people the right to bear arms.[footnote]Jeffrey M. Berry, and Clyde Wilcox, The Interest Group Society<\/em>, 3rd. ed. (New York: Longman, 2008), 188\u2013190.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Visibility of Policy Involvement<\/h3>\r\n

    Interest groups are often most successful when their activities are unreported by the media, unscrutinized by most policymakers, and hidden from the public. Opposition to a group\u2019s activities is difficult when they are not visible. As one lobbyist observed, \u201cA lobby is like a night flower, it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.\u201d[footnote]Jeffrey Goldberg, \u201cReal Insiders<\/a>,\u201d New Yorker<\/em>, July 4, 2005, accessed March 23, 2011.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n

    In what are called iron triangles<\/a><\/span>, or subgovernments, policy on a subject is often made by a relatively few people from Congress, the bureaucracy, and interest groups. A classic iron triangle has been veterans\u2019 affairs policy. Members of Congress chairing the relevant committees and subcommittees and their aides, key agency administrators from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and representatives from interest groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) have interacted and dominated policymaking.[footnote]J. Leiper Freeman, The Political Process: Bureau-Legislative Committee Relations<\/em>, rev. ed. (New York: Random House, 1965).[\/footnote]<\/span> This policymaking has taken place with low visibility and very little opposition to the benefits provided for veterans. In general, the news media pay little attention to iron triangles in the absence of conflict and controversy, and interest groups are likely to achieve many of their objectives.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Political Change and Crises<\/h3>\r\n

    Whether interest groups defend what they have or go on the offense to gain new benefits often depends on who is in control of the government. Some interest groups\u2019 goals are supported or opposed far more by one political party than another. A new president or a change in party control of Congress usually benefits some groups while putting others at a disadvantage. The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2010 election put a brake on new regulation of business by Congress, reduced funds for regulators to hire staff and enforce regulation, and limited investigations of industry practices.<\/p>\r\n

    Crises, especially ones extensively depicted by the media, often involve politicians and interest groups trying to achieve or prevent policy changes. Looking to exploit the horrific BP (British Petroleum) oil spill of 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico (which was widely covered in the media and replete with images of the oil-infested waters and oil-coated beaches and wildlife), environmentalists and their congressional allies worked for \u201cmeasures to extend bans on new offshore drilling, strengthen safety and environmental safeguards, and raise to $10 billion or more the cap on civil liability for an oil producer in a spill.\u201d[footnote]Eric Lichtblau and Jad Mouaward, \u201cOil Companies Weigh Strategies to Fend Off Tougher Regulations<\/a>,\u201d New York Times<\/em>, June 2, 2010, accessed March 23, 2011.[\/footnote]<\/span> Opposing them were the oil and gas industry, which, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent $174.8 million on lobbying in 2009, and its allies in Congress from such oil states as Texas and Louisiana.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Relations between Interest Groups and Policymakers<\/h2>\r\n

    When viewed overall, there is a hierarchy in the influence of relations between interest groups and policymakers.[footnote]These categories come from Samuel J. Eldersveld, \u201cAmerican Interest Groups,\u201d in\u00a0Interest Groups on Four Continents<\/em>, ed. Henry W. Ehrmann (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958), 187.[\/footnote]<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n