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Interest Group Studies: must groups be in the 'too-hard basket
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The central paradox in reviewing the contribution of British political scientists to the understanding of these intermediary institutions is that both the number of scholars and the output have been considerable, yet the international impact has been relatively modest. Two explanations seem plausible. First, with a few notable exceptions, the centre of gravity of these studies has coincided with the centre of gravity of British political science as a whole -it is largely atheoretical in its research style. A second possible explanation is that studies in these fields have tended to focus on activities (of groups and social movements) or on office-holding (parties) and have been much less interested in power as a concept. Relatively little is known about the effects that this activity has on outcomes in terms of public policy or the distribution of power in society.
The most dramatic even in pressure politics in the year 2000 was the fuel protest. It vividly illustrates the tension between conventional forms of insider pressure group activity and the increasing use of various forms of direct action. Conventional insider politics is still widely used, but many established groups are facing dissent from their own membership and competition from more militant groups. The growth of direct action and the increasing effectiveness of single-issue groups raises important normative issues about the political process. The greater complexity of a multi-level system of government presents groups with both opportunities and threats. There is an uneasy and unstable balance between traditional and new forms of activity. There needs to be a wider debate about the democratic legitimacy of pressure groups.
Contemporary analysis of British government suggests that in most sectors of industrial, economic and social policy there exists a ‘policy community’ in which key interest groups enjoy a more or less close partnership with the relevant government departments and statutory bodies in the formulation and implementation of policy. As a result even Parliament itself may play little direct role in the policy process (Jordan 1981, Jordan and Richardson 1982). Moreover analysis suggests that, taken together, a number of factors have meant that over the past decade or so most of these policy communities have faced growing external pressures.
This paper addresses the impact of class position on collective action by comparing workers' and business' associational organizability. Hypotheses on this are derived from class theory, collective action theory and organization theory. When examining them via a crossnational comparison of labor unions and business interest associations, class-specific differences arise: a higher organizability accrues to business interest associations in terms of the ability to recruit members, but to unions in terms of internalizing interests and making members comply. No theory's hypotheses are completely consistent with these findings. Their shortcomings are discussed, and a revised theoretical approach is developed. The paper's final section discusses some consequences of the observed differences for business' and unions' interest policies.
L'A. repond a D. E. Morgan qui a critique les analyses presentees dans son ouvrage « Associative democracy ». Celui-ci avait soutenu que les conceptions qu'il defend en matiere democratique etaient inapplicables et pernicieuses. L'A. avait defendu la necessite d'une pluralisation de l'Etat qui permettrait d'octroyer un plus grand pouvoir aux associations volontaires. Ce modele devait permettre de remedier aux defauts de l'organisation sociale moderne ce que conteste Morgan qui denie aux associations la capacite de jouer un tel role social. Il affirme que les critiques qui lui sont adressees sont ethiques et non experimentales
Preface A Changed Scene: 1987-1992 Conservatives: Thatcher to Major Labour: Seeking Electability Liberal Democrats and Peripheral Politics The Near Term Campaign: Winter 1991-92 The Deceptive Battle: March-April 1992 The Waterloo of the Polls Politics on the Air: Martin Harrison A Tabloid War: Martin Harrop and Margaret Scammell MPs and Candidates: Byron Criddle The Local Battle Retrospect: Mistakes and Triumphs A Critical Election? Appendix Select Bibliography Index
List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroductionCh. 1Progress and Confusion3Ch. 2Barriers to Accumulation22Ch. 3The Rise and Decline of the Group Approach44Ch. 4Collective Action and the New Literature on Interest Groups64Ch. 5Bias and Diversity in the Interest-Group System83Ch. 6The Dynamics of Bias100Ch. 7Building a Literature on Lobbying, One Case Study at a Time120Ch. 8Surveys of Interest-Group Activities147Ch. 9Learning from Experience168AppendixArticles on Interest Groups Published in the American Political Science Review, 1950-1995189References197Index217
The levels of organisational development of business interest associations in two industrial sectors – chemicals and food processing – in Canada and the United Kingdom are compared, with special reference to the capacity of the associations to undertake public policy functions and to engage in long-term strategic thinking about the problems facing their industries. There is a higher level of organisational development in British business interest associations than in their Canadian counterparts, especially in the chemicals sector. The British associations are better able to assume responsibility for public policy implementation as private governments. A number of explanations are reviewed, particular emphasis being placed on different company structures, the disintegrating effect of high levels of foreign ownership in Canada, bureaucratic competition in Canada, association involvement in collective bargaining, and the impact of European Community membership on the British associations.
This article examines the contemporary agricultural policy-making environment in Britain and suggests that the growing complexity of interest articulation and policy making has eroded NFU dominance as a peak association. We would suggest that it is this clientelistic attitude to agriculture rather than a specific relationship with one interest group (however influential) that shapes the agricultural agenda. This article rejects a version of events which sees policy outputs as being the result of exclusive MAFF/NFU interactions as exaggerating policy-making closure, and the exclusion of environmental and other externality interests. It portrays the policy sector as fragmented and competitive, with a wide cast list of pressure participants all vying for policy influence. It identifies flexible policy communities operating at the sub-sectoral level, and within such arrangements the NFU often has to defer to the specialist or niche expertise of single commodity groups or agricultural processing companies.
This article seeks to place the study of British government in a broader context by exploring the potential contribution of an anti-foundational epistemology. We seek to ‘reinvent’ a self-conscious, sceptical and tentative approach rooted in philosophy and history. The first section defines the Westminster model and the family of linked narratives: traditional sceptics, social science, radical theory, new public management. The second section outlines an anti-foundational epistemology, focusing on the notions of traditions, narratives, decentering and dilemmas. The third section applies this approach to one prominent school of thought about British government: policy networks. We argue that an anti-foundational approach will decenter networks, shifting the locus of analysis from the institutions to individuals, and focus on dilemmas to explain how networks change. Finally, we conclude there is no essentialist account of British government, only complex and diverse narratives, and no tool kit for solving problems, only lessons drawn from many stories.
Issues in National Politics in 1999 The Kosovo crisis and the elections to the European Parliament were the two topics that affected politics in most of the 29 countries treated in this issue of the Political Data Yearbook. The military actions of NATO countries against Serbia were mostly approved of, except in Greece, where the general public supported the Serbs, placing the Greek government in a rather difficult position. Political parties in Italy, a country deeply involved in the military operations, were divided on the issue. And Central European countries learned the consequences of their recent membership of NATO, in that they were asked to support Western military action against a country in Eastern Europe. The elections to the European Parliament aroused far less public attention. Voting turnout was very low in many countries, but it was not limited to European elections only. Also on other occasions indifference towards the electoral process in democracies seems to be growing, as the low turnout at general elections in New Zealand, in Finland or at local and provincial elections in Norway may indicate. Another phenomenon that also touched politics in many countries was political scandal. Most political scandals were related to the financing of political parties and/or candidates, but not all of them, as the Lewinsky-affair in the United States shows. The most prominent financial scandal was the Kohl affair in Germany, that was to reach its peak in 2000. In a sense it was a specific type of financial scandal, in that it was not so much about corruption or fraud, but rather about the fact that former chancellor Kohl had refused to publish the names of donors, which is illegal in Germany. Corruption, fraud or tax evasion were reported in other countries (Belgium, France, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand), indicating that the ‘spiral of scandals’, mentioned in the Political Data Yearbook 1994 has not been broken as yet. Sometimes resulting from financial scandals, new legislation was introduced on the financing of parties and/or elections (United Kingdom, the Netherlands).
This article has two aims. First, we develop a dialectical model of the role that policy networks play in any explanation of policy outcomes. Our model is based upon a critique of existing approaches and emphasizes that the relationship between networks and outcomes is not a simple, unidimensional one. Rather, we argue that there are three interactive or dialectical relationships involved between: the structure of the network and the agents operating within them; the network and the context within which it operates; and the network and the policy outcome. Second, we use this model to help analyse and understand continuity and change in British agricultural policy since the 1930s. Obviously, one case is not sufficient to establish the utility of the model, but the case does illustrate both that policy networks can, and do, affect policy outcomes and that, in order to understand how that happens, we need to appreciate the role played by the three dialectical relationships highlighted in our model.
The article explores the impact of Conservative governments since 1979 on business representation, It concentrates on the trade association - the most common form of business organization in the UK but one which has been largely neglected in the discussion of business representation. The results of a major survey of trade associations conducted in 1994 are reported and their significance assessed in the light of three general propositions about the direction of business representation since 1979.
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