Political Economy

Submitted by:

Tariq Zeyad Fahad

Student No: 191285016

Supervised by :

Prof Dr- Abuzer Pinar

Interest Group

An Interest Group is an organization of people who share a common interest and work
together to protect and promote that interest by influencing the government. Interest
groups vary greatly in size, aims, and tactics. Political scientists generally divide interest
groups into two categories: economic and noneconomic.

Economic Groups
Economic Groups, which seek some sort of economic advantage for their members, are
the most common type of interest group. Money has significant influence in capitalist
societies, so economic interest groups are numerous and powerful. These groups are
usually well funded because members willingly contribute money in the hopes of reaping
greater political influence and profit.
Economic groups work to win Private Goods, which are benefits that only the members
of the group will enjoy. When a labor union agrees to a contract, for example, its
members benefit from the contract, whereas nonunion members do not. If there is no
private good incentive, people might choose not to join (especially if there is a
membership fee or dues). There are four main types of economic groups: business
groups, labor groups, agricultural groups, and professional associations.

Types of Interest Groups

Few would argue that one person could not make a difference in American politics. But
there is power in numbers, and political institutions are more likely to respond to a
collective rather than to an individual voice. An interest group is an organization whose
members share common concerns and try to influence government policies affecting
those concerns. Interest groups are also known as lobbies; lobbying is one of the ways in
which interest groups shape legislation and bring the views of their constituents to the
attention of decision-makers
 1- Public interest groups

Public interest groups do not usually expect to profit directly from the policy changes
they seek. However, the activists who staff these groups gain financially by attracting
donations from individuals and foundations who support their activities. As the name
implies, public interest groups enjoy an image of non-partisanship, even though some of
them engage in clearly political activities (such as when Common Cause joined the fight
against President George W. Bush's attorney general nominee, John Ashcroft). These
groups also usually receive disproportionately positive news coverage, even when there is
serious disagreement over their policy proposals. A large number of consumer advocacy
groups and environmental organizations, such as the Environmental Defense Fund
(EDF), fall into this category. Perhaps best known is the League of Women Voters,
which promotes simplified voting procedures and an informed electorate, and Common
Cause, which backs more effective government. Common Cause is a strong critic of other
interest groups for their excessive campaign contributions, and it lobbies for campaign
finance reform

2- Government interest groups

Given the structure of our federal system, it is not surprising that there are organizations
to bring the issues of local and state government before Congress and the administration.
Government interest groups include the National League of Cities, the National
Conference of Mayors, and the National Governors Association. One critical task
performed by these groups is to help state and local governments get federal grants.
These funds are important because they are a central means in which states get back
money taken away through federal taxes. As the budget has tightened and as more
Republicans have won governorships, these groups have become more likely to seek
more local control over policies instead of more cash.
 3- Religious interest groups

The separation of church and state does not preclude religious interest groups from
lobbying; indeed, it is safe to say that all religious groups are involved in politics to some
degree. The Christian Coalition, which draws most of its support from conservative
Protestants, has an agenda that includes support for school prayer, opposition to
homosexual rights, and a constitutional amendment banning abortion. It became an
important factor in American politics, particularly in the Republican party, in the early
1990s.

4- Civil rights interest groups

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the
Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the National
Organization for Women (NOW), and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
represent groups that historically have faced legal discrimination and, in many respects,
continue to lack equal opportunity. Their concerns involve more than civil rights,
however, and encompass social welfare, immigration policy, affirmative action, a variety
of gender issues, and political action.

5- Ideological interest groups

Ideological interest groups view all issues — federal spending, taxes, foreign affairs,
court appointments, and so forth — through the lens of their political ideology, typically
liberal or conservative. Their support for legislation or policy depends exclusively on
whether they find it ideologically sound. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), a
liberal group, and the American Conservative Union (ACU) rate elected officials by the
same standard. A Republican challenger might point to an incumbent's high ADA rating
to show that he or she is too liberal to represent the district.
 6- Single-issue interest groups

Some interest groups are formed to advocate for or against a single issue. Although other
interest groups may have a position for or against gun control, it is the only issue in the
political arena for the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the National Coalition to
Ban Handguns (NCBH). The same is true of abortion, which pits the National Right to
Life Committee (NRLC) against the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).
These examples are not meant to suggest that single-issue interest groups always generate
their opposite. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which campaigns for stiffer
sentences for driving while intoxicated and mandatory penalties for the first offense,
clearly does not.

Although most interest groups focus on domestic issues, some are concerned with foreign
policy. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), for example, focuses on
the Middle East and the relationship between the United States and Israel.

How influential are the interest groups?

An interest group that strongly favors a speci c policy, but is unable to convince
decision makers of the policy’s merits, may try to have an indirect impact on decision
making bymobilising and shaping public opinion. It can do so by using both new and
traditionalmedia, sending leanest to households or holding a rally. Greenpeace, for
example, has used campaign posters, launched a campaign website and organized an
online petition in its attempts to stop the negotiations for a TTIP. Does this effort actually
change public opinion, in the sense of making people more or less supportive of the
policy? If so, through which mechanism does such outside lobbying matter for public
opinion? Much research suggests that political elites can indeed shape individual attitudes
(Zaller1992; Chong & Rickman 2011). This literature builds on the premise that most
individuals are ‘awash in ignorance’ of politics (Kinder 1998: 784; see also Zaller 1992).
Citizens’ lack of information may make it possible for political elites to shape public
opinion via issue frames (also called ‘emphasis frames’) that stress a speci c
interpretation of an event(Chong & Druckman 2007; Nelson 2011). Following Druckman
(2004: 672), issue frames ‘focus on qualitatively different yet potentially relevant
considerations’ of an issue.1Forexample,a smoking ban can be framed as a public health
issue or as government interference with personal lifestyles. The impact of frames can
best be understood when conceiving of attitudes as the sum of a set of beliefs or
evaluations and weights for each belief (Nelson& Oxley 1999). The emphasis put on
speci c issue frames may change the relative weights of the evaluations, by making one
or several evaluations more accessible and applicable ton issue. The result is a change in
overall attitude. A framing effect hence implies that ‘speaker’s emphasis on a subset of
potentially relevant considerations causes individuals to focus on these considerations
when constructing their opinions’ (Druckman & Nelson 2003:730). In addition to this
framing effect, statements by political elites may also have an impact on attitudes by
changing the beliefs themselves. This is then a persuasion effect. Because there is little
reason to believe that the arguments conveyed by interest groups are qualitatively
different from the arguments transmitted by other political elites, tending of framing and
persuasion effects should also apply to interest groups. Clearly, however, not all
arguments transport the same amount of information. Much research shows that ‘frame
strength’ matters for the effect of frames on individual attitudes (Chaiken& Maheswaran
1994; Druckman et al. 2013). The issue frames that transmit concrete information
(‘strong frames’) should matter more than vague ones (‘weak frames’).

Conclusion
Through which mechanism do interest groups affect public opinion? I have formulated
and tested three hypotheses that distinguish between the effect of arguments and the
effect of interest groups as source cues. The nding is that interest groups mainly matter
for public opinion via the arguments that they convey. This effect is particularly large for
people with little information about a policy. By contrast, interest groups only have a
minor effect as source cues. Not even for people with high trust in an interest group does
this basic nding change. The ending that arguments matter independent of the sources
is particularly interesting given the commonly held view that people ‘only believe frames
that come from sources they perceive to be credible’ (Druckman 2001: 1045). The only
case where an interest group as source cue really mattered for individual attitudes was
when this cue was counter-intuitive. In reality this will happen rarely, as what happens
frequently is no longercounter-intuitive.An explanation for the virtual absence of an
interest group source cue effect may be that only few people like or dislike interest
groups the way that people like or dislike political parties. Although the groups that I
chose for the experiment are generally well known, they are still less prominent than
most political parties with parliamentary representation. The increasing
professionalization of interest groups, with most members having no role in them besides
providing manila support (Barakso & Schaffner 2008), makes identi cation even less
probable. Whereas partisan identi cation has been equated with religious
identi cation(Green et al. 2002: 4), no such interest group identi cation has been
empirically established.In the absence of identication with a speci c interest group,
people are less likely to be driven to see the world through a speci c ‘group lens’ (as
compared to seeing the worldthrough a partisan lens).A possible caveat to the ndings
presented in this article is that they derive from survey experiments. Existing research
shows that treatment effects shown in survey experiments tend to be weaker in the real
world (Barabas & Jerit 2010). This is so because the treatment is often much more
explicit in survey experiments than in the real world; citizens will often face con icting
claims in the real world; and people not interested in current affairs may not even be
exposed to the arguments made by actors in the real world. While these are potentially
valid criticisms, these effects should actually further strengthen the endings of the
present article: if even in a survey experiment interest groups hardly matter as source
cues, they should matter even less in the real world.