Page 269 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes balances’. It also implies that when the groups act as a check upon the government, the latter must
see to it that the activity of group politics is saved from deterioration to the extent of vitiating or
destroying the political system itself. As Verney holds: “The use of the term ‘pressure groups’ suggests
that outside interests are obtaining special favours at the expense of the public, but it is also true that
groups help to prevent Governments from imposing unfair burdens on the unorganised masses.
Moreover, where party programmes tend, of necessity, to be general, group policies and proposals
can be usefully specified”. Second, the utility of pressure groups must be examined in the light of
new approach to the meaning of politics. Politics is a struggle for power creating conflicts and tensions
and then discovering and offering their solutions and adjustments. As Miller says: “Politics rests
ultimately upon the conflict and accommodation of interests, brought into being by the manifold
inequalities of a society; broadly speaking, political decision will follow the course along which it is
led by the relative strength of interests”.
Self-Assessment

1. Fill in the blanks:
(i) A party is a very ............... unit having a membership in thousands but a grent is a
comparatively very ............... entity having its membership in hundreds and thousands.
(ii) Institutional Groups is a new category invented in ............... .
(iii) Cases of corruption and inadministration are exposed by ............... .
(iv) Anomic groups include (tick the correct option)
(a) organisation whose behaviour is unpredictable
(b) groups having informal organisations
(c) all leading pressure groups of a century
(d) None of these
11.4 Summary

• The politics of pressure groups hinges on the psychological foundation of self-interest. It is the
cardinal factor of self-interest that forces men to be in unison with other ‘like-minded’ ones in
order to enhance their position and power to the point of gaining recognition, legitimisation
and realisation of their specific interest.
• A pressure group has been defined as “an organised aggregate which seeks to influence the
context of governmental decisions without attempting to place its members in formal
governmental capacities”.
• Pressure associations do, however, appear before the resolutions committees of the political
parties to urge the endorsement of their programme as planks in the parties’ platforms. They
often attempt to secure the endorsement of both major parties and thus remove their programme
from the arena of partisan controversy.
• Pressure groups play their part in every political society. It would be worthwhile to enumerate
their characteristic features to highlight their different dimensions and areas of operation in
order to understand the working of a modern political system from a micro-angle of vision.
1. A specific interest is the root of the formation of a pressure group. It follows that there can
be no group unless there is a specific interest forcing the individuals to actively resort to
political means in order to improve or defend their positions, one agianst another.
2. Pressure groups play the role of hide-and-seek in politics. That is, they feel afraid of coming
into politics to play their part openly and try to hide their political character by the pretence
of their being non-political entities.
• Pressure group politics “represents something less than the full politicisation of groups and
something more than utter depoliticisation: it constitutes an intermediate level of activity between
the political and the apolitical”.

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