Page 262 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 11: Pressure Groups

Notes

A group is always based on some specific interest. It fights for the protection and
promotion of that interest. The interest may be like enhancement of wages and
allowances, or the increase of price of agricultural commodities, or conservation of a
particular language and culture.
G. A. Almond presents a classification of his own having four important categories as:
1. Institutional Groups: This is a new category invented by Almond. It includes departments of
the state like legislature, executive, bureaucracy and judiciary in the category of pressure groups.
The finding of Almond is that even an organ of government can create ‘inputs’ that may have
the form of ‘outputs’. For instance, the bureaucrats may influence the ministers and then a
decision is taken so as to protect and promote the interest of the administrators.
2. Associational Groups: This category includes all leading pressure groups of a country about
which we have said above. The organisations of the businessmen, workers, farmers, professionals
etc. may be referred to here. These are formally organised and largely registered bodies having
their constitutions, rules organisations, finances, records of activities and the like.
3. Non-Associational Groups: In this category we may refer to some groups having informal
organisation. These are based on the factor of kinship, religion, tribal loyalties, social traditions
and the like. These bodies have an intermittent existence. They appear and disappear from time
to time. That is, these bodies appear when some important ceremony or function is to be done,
or some important matter is to be taken up by the ‘community’. These groups may be seen in
the backward communities of the world.
4. Anomic Groups: This category includes all those organisations whose behaviour is
unpredictable. They may do anything at the spur of the moment like an angry child. Such
organisations often act spontaneously and indulge in activities of violence and extremism.
Students’ unions and youth organisations are the best examples of this category.

Why a pressure group is described as an instrument of interest articulation?

Role of Pressure Groups

But the most important part of our study relates to the role of these numerous pressure groups a the
political process of a country. It may be seen in these important directions:
1. Legislature: Pressure groups try to induct their chosen persons into the legislature. They take
part in the war of nominations when political parties distribute ‘tickets’ to their candidates on
the eve of the elections. They take interest in writing party’s election manifestos, because anything
written in it or omitted from it bears out its significance when the party forms its government.
They collect funds and spend that amount on the canvassing campaigns of the candidates.
Every possible effort is made to have the candidates of choice elected; conversely, it implies that
‘unfavourable’ candidates should be defeated. Thereafter, the groups manage to keep contact
with the legislators so that their services may be requisitioned for any purpose like asking
questions from the ministers, putting adjournment and call attention motions, supporting or
opposing a particular bill or a particular part of the budget, passing or vetoing a resolution in
the house and so on. A group of such legislators makes a ‘lobby’.
2. Executive: As executive has become the most important department of state in modern times,
pressure groups attach utmost importance to filling high executive posts with the men of their
choice. They know that a favourable President, or a Prime Minister, or even an influential cabinet
minister may do much for the sake of their benefit. In a presidential system entire focus is laid

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