Page 270 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Unit 11: Pressure Groups

• They are political or sectional groups when they have a long-range interest and strive to have a Notes
part in the political process for the common needs of their members which are not of a transient
kind.
• viewed in a wider perspective, pressure groups may be classified into four parts-’institutional’
groups (like government departments) which exist to perform functions and keep the
governmental process in operation, non-associationa 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.
• 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 party has its registered offices, constitution, flag, membership records, list of office bearers,
and it frankly and proudly owns responsibility Tor 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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’.
• 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.
• Cases of corruption and maladministration are exposed by interest groups so as to dislodge an
unfavourable minister from the position of influence. It is also possible that some big and
powerful groups may have easy access to the ministers on the basis of their power of money or
on the show of their manpowei that may be of great use to them at the time of elections.
• No part of government can be free from the tugs and pull of politics. The bureaucrats have their
own interests. The leaders of the pressure groups manage to establish their links with the
bureaucrats of the country.
• It is also possible that in the name of being, ‘expert’ the permanent officials determined the
ground of national policy to be adopted and implemented by the government of the country.
• Leading pressure groups take active interest in the nomination of the judges. They try to
manipulate things in a way that the names of their ‘favourites’ are picked by the head of the
state and eventually high judicial offices are occupied by them.
• All groups which criticise or oppose the leader and his party in power are forcibly suppressed.
It is a different thing that such groups become ‘underground’ and manage to come up their a
successful coup or in the changed political atmosphere.
• The relationship between political parties and organised interest groups is like a two-way
traffic. In collaboration with political parties groups make the operation of democratic system
possible, and along with that act as an effective check on the arbitrary exercise of power at any
place in the political system.

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