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Unit 11: Pressure Groups

of unprincipled and corrupt forces undermining the existence of what Rousseau called ‘general will’. Notes
In the politics of pressure groups it is the shrewd and corrupt leadership which enjoys a position of
special advantage. Then, the behaviour of these groups is hardly democratic either towards other
groups operating in the country or even towards those which come to render their support on some
occasions. The organisation of leadership and other hierarchical units operates in the hands of
unscrupulous persons indulging in quite selfish and irresponsible ways. Their game of hide-and-
seek in politics brings about a situation of their difference with political parties with the result that
they cannot be held to account for their policies, their leaders cannot be turned out of public office
and punished at the polls. Finally, it appears that though selfish and narrow interests effectively
organise, important and socially significant ones go unrepresented. “The battle between producers
and consumers, for example, is notably uneven”.
Various pressure groups operating in a political society are viewed with moral indignation and alarm
owing to their sinister penetration in the mechanism of modern representative system. It is further
charged that the technique of lobbying, as practised by these groups, constitutes a whole congeries of
abuses, corruption and fraud manifestly weakening people’s faith in the system of popular
government. While referring to the sinister interplay of pressure groups behind the legislative process
in the American Congress, Woodrow Wilson discovered that the wishes of the Congress were really
the wishes of the interest groups. It is also contended that any degree of appreciation of the role of
pressure groups in a modern political system becomes reminiscent of the Fascist corporate state.
Hence, it “may be said that the genuine representative significance of all organisations arising in
connection with men’s activities within the total context of modern industrial life has become
sufficiently apparent to make it necessary to reckon them as pretenders to the throne of government.
Where the interests are sharply divided, certain of these groups have proceeded to take over the
government and to revolutionise it in such a way as to suit their particular needs and conceptions.
Such efforts accompanied by dictatorial methods relapse into crude techniques of government which
violate the fundamental premises of constitutional limitation”.
Despite these objectionable points, the utility of pressure groups in the working of a modern
constitutional system cannot be dismissed. Exponents of the group theory of politics and others
subscribing to the school of modern pluralism emphasise the fact that there is an organic relationship
between the individual and the groups owing to which the individuals “are the heirs of the head,
while the groups are limbs on which the body depends”. If political parties are inevitable for the
working of a modern democratic system, pressure groups have their own significance in the political
process. Any fear of contradiction between individual and group political participation can be avoided
by looking upon politics as a process rather than as a simple relationship between formal structures
of a political system. It is unwise to purge or finish conflicting interests, rather the task “remains of
distilling the general public interest out of the often-conflicting special interests which constitute part
of the whole”.
It leads to the satisfying conclusion that there is every need for keeping control over the interest
groups in order to regulate their existence and working to the best possible extent. It is necessary to
assure that, while making their contribution to the political process of a country, the groups are not
allowed to lose their touch with their own members or other groups of the society, or doing anything
against public interest or general good. The case of public recognition of group participation carries
with it the understanding that interest groups conform to the same standard of political behaviour
which is expected from the individual electors. True that the unorganised individuals at the ballot
box have often become powerless to achieve anything in contrast to the highly organised lobbies
with their direct access to the centre of power, but there remains nothing to prevent the state from
reforming and regulating the pressure groups which exist and enjoy power without responsibility.
The real significance of pressure groups in a political society must be examined in the light of two
main considerations. First, they are of numerous advantages to political parties and thereby contribute
to the sustenance of the modern representative system. Power corrupts man and power alone checks
power. The pressure groups thus act as a powerful check upon the arbitrary exercise of power and as
they themselves are prone to abuse their share of power, it is essential that various interest groups be
allowed to act as a check upon one another in order to establish and sustain the system of ‘checks and

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