Page 261 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes in operation, 'non-association' groups based on class, kinship, religion or other traditional characteristic
bases of communication being informal, or intermittent, ‘anomic’ groups appearing in the form of
spontaneous uprisings like demonstrations, processions, marches, riots, etc. and ‘associational groups
formally organised to represent the interests of particular persons also to enjoy the advantages that
such association provides in dealing with other political structures.
11.2 Difference between Political Parties and Pressure Groups

In a technical sense, a political party may be distinguished from a pressure group on these grounds:
1. A party is a very big unit having a membership in thousands, even millions, but a group is a
comparatively very small entity having its membership in hundreds and thousands. It is possible
that a political party may be a small organisation having a few hundred or thousand members(as
Sokka Gakkai of the Buddhists in Japan) and there the line of distinction between a political
party and a pressure group may be blurred.

A pressure group is described as an instrument of interest articulation.

2. But a party is a federation or an alliance of many interests. It includes persons belonging to
various walks of life like businessmen, workers, farmers, lawyers, and the like. So a party is
regarded as an instrument of ’interest aggregation’.
3. But the most important point of distinction between the two is that while a political party plays
its part in the political process of the country ‘openly’, pressure groups do so by involving
themselves in the game of ‘hide and seek’. A party has its registered offices, constitution, flag,
membership records, list of office bearers, and it frankly and proudly owns responsibility for
certain actions in the field of politics, a pressure group pretends to remain politically neutral
while being very much involved in the game of struggle for power. It is for this reason that
most of the pressure groups prefer to operate in the field of politics through the medium of
some political parties. We may also take note of the fact that while some pressure groups have
open and permanent links with a political party (as British business interests with Conservative
Party and labour unions with the Labour Parly), others have their shifting links as per the
exigencies of the situation.
11.3 Kinds and Role of Pressure Groups

Kinds of Pressure Groups

The pressure groups of a country may be put into different categories. For instance, the organisations
of the industrialists, producers, manufacturers, and entrepreneurs may be included in the category
of business groups, the bodies of the agriculturists may be included in the category of peasant groups,
the associations of the workers engaged in industrial enterprises may be included in the category of
labour groups and the like. Since people of all professions (like lawyers, engineers, doctors, teachers,
technicians etc.) have their own associations, these may be put together in the category of professional
groups. Then, there are a very large number of religious, communal and communitarian bodies that
may be treated as pressure groups in their own right when they do something, directly or indirectly,
overtly or covertly, to affect the administration of the country. In addition to this, we may prepare a
long list of many spontaneous and anomic units like unions of the students and organisations of the
militants who may take part in the political process of the country at the spur of the moment and who
may go to indulge in activities of violence to any extent. In short, the pressure groups of a country
may be put into business, labour, peasant, religious and communitarian, and anomic categories. This
may be termed horizontal classification of pressure groups. But a vertical classification may be made
on the basis of their network at local, regional, provincial, national and international levels.

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