Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Pressure Groups - Coggle Diagram
Pressure Groups
-
Methods Used by Pressure Groups to Influence Decision-Making
US system of government provided many different access points for groups to wield influence.
Electoral Campaigning
Endorsing candidates, making campaign donations and releasing voting ‘scorecards’.
Groups may openly endorse a candidate encouraging their emmebers to vote for them.
The amount candidates official campaigns can raise is limited, so groups give their money to poltiical action committees.
- League of Conversation Voters spent $85 million on electoral campaigning in 2018, more than any other single-issue group.
- Acheived its aim of winning back the House for the Democrats, 60 new congressional candidates being elected.
EMILY’s List 1985
Aims to get pro-choice Democratic women elected to office, by recruiting candidates for office, then supporting their campaign throughout the whole electoral process.
-
Reveal scorecards showing how candidates score on certain key policies
- The NRA allocates each candidate from A to F based on their voting record on gun rights.
-
Using the Courts
The Supreme Court has so much power to interpret the Constitution and to check the executive.
Legal Challenges
If they lose in th lower courts, they can appeal to the SC, where they hope for a landmark ruling.
- NAACP funded Brown v Topeka
- ACLU brought the legal case of Obergefell v Hodges to the SC.
They can target state laws aimed at eroding s previous ruling by the Supreme Court
- Planned Parenthood v Casey
Can hold executive to account by challenging its actions in the courts, the ACLU mounted 56 legal challenges against Trump from 2017-18.
- Trump’s ban on Muslim countries immigrants in 2017, halted by federal court, following modification was upheld by the SC.
-
Grassroots Campaigning
Paying membership fees providing revenue for the group, as well as campaigning.
Groups can mobilise their members to contact members of Congress, state legislatures and governments.
Members can organise petitions and fundraising drives, sharing advertisements on social media, and demonstrate in marches.
Direct Action
Methods used that go beyond standard constituional methods of campaigning, forcing concessions.
1950s and 60d civil rights movement non-violent protests using ‘sit-ins’ in segregated white-only areas
Effectiveness
Generates media and public attention, but may alienate policy-makers or the public, especially if violent.
Leaders cannot necessarily prevent causes from being linked to violence, as mass mobilisations can become out of control.
- Since 2013, Black Lives Matter have organised huge demonstrations and street protests against systemic racism, amplified in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd .
-
-
Pressure Groups Funding of Elections
Collectively spend millions in electoral finance to get Poltiical candidates elected.
The NRA
5 million members , as US politics has become more polarised it has channelled focus to Republican candidates (98% of funding in 2016)
Spent money in primaries opposing the reflection of moderate Republicans , in 2012 against senator Richard Luger, whose support of gun control ranked F.
Made donations to Democrats from the ‘Blue Dog’ faction such as Texas congressman Henry Cuellar, controversial as not all members support gun rights.
- Blue Dog PAC returned a donation from the NRA after criticism.
Spent $52.5 million on electoral campaigning in 2016, revenue from membership fell due to presidential success, then gun control groups outspent them in 2018 midterms for the first time.
Not unviserally supported after Trump’s victory.
- March 2019 Trump’s admin had introduced national ban on bump stocks.
-
Reinforcing Incumbency
Incumbents with greater funding reinforces the advanatge in elections against challengers with lower profiles and no existing relationship with constituents.
Iron Triangles
Close relationship between an interest group, Congress and the executive branch bound together in a network of mutual advantage.
Interested groups influence Congress, making donations to election campaigns, also responsible for a large proportion of employment in certain congressional disctricts
Congress is responsible for funding exectuive departments’ policy area, gives incentive of exectuive to develop policy Congress will approve.
-
Executive create regulations PGs have to abide to, and influence Congress by setting the policy agenda and determining how the federal bureaucracy will implement Congress’ laws.
Drug Companies: ‘Big Pharma’ and the FDA
Big pharmaceutical companies pursue strong links with the federal governemtn agency regulating pharmaceuticals- the Food and Drug Administration and with Congress.
Pharma companies focus attention on members of key congressional committees such as the House Energy Subcomittee on Health whose chair (D) Anna Espoo, received hundreds of thousands in donations in the 2020 election cycle.
Benefits from the revolving door
- Scott Gottlieb worked for the FDA from 2005-2007 before working for several pharmaceutical companies from 2007-2017, appointed head of the FDA in 2017, then joining the board of directors of Pfizer.
Role of PACs and Super PACs Regarding Electoral Finance
Pressure groups use these to manage electoral spending
Political Action Committees
Raise money for the direct purpose of electing or defeating candidates in elections
They can make direct ‘hard money’ contributions to candidates
- Individuals can donate $5,000 a year to a PAC, restricting how much they can raise.
Hard money spending by PACs is also limited, who cannot give more than $5,000 a year to a candidate’s campaign.
- PACs can make unlimited independent expenditures.
Super PACs
In US law, spending money on poltiical campaigning is seen as free speech so PGs and corporations could spend an unlimited amount, providing it was independent expenditure not direct campaign contributions.
Landmark ruling of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission created a new type of independent expenditure- only political action committee (Super PAC).
Pressure groups can donate unlimited sums to Super PACs, and can spend unlimited amounts on independent expenditure.
-
Are they too powerful?
Yes
-
-
The revolving door grants large influence of interest groups over members of the executive and Congress.
Iron triangles can lead to the executive or Congress taking decisions on behalf of interest groups not the people
-
-
-
No
-
-
Access does not guarantee influence, and legislators can use specialist knowledge to write better laws and regulations.
-
Brought many successful legal challenges to executive policy, updating the Constituion and protecting civil rights.
-
Interest groups tend to support the poltical party that best serves their interests, contributing tot he system of ‘big tent’ parties.