Page 331 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes mutual support are also loose that it often seems to border on anarchy, feudalism in which one
party does not even have a king.”
• Pressure groups in the United States are numerous; they are also autonomous to a very great
extent. The reason for this lies in America’s being a vast democratic country with a federal
system and having a huge population dedicated to the ideals of mammon-worship and
pragmatism.
• American political system stands on the principle of separation of powers whereby the will of
the President cannot become a law in every case and that the federal judiciary may strike down
any order of the President or any law of the Congress on the ground of its being ultra vires of the
Constitution.
• In actual practice, the scope of lobbying has now covered almost every nook and corner of the
American administration whether at the national, or state, or local level. Not only this, sometimes
the lobbyists go the the final extent of bearing their weight upon the public officials by all
means, whether proper or improper, that becomes ‘grass-roots lobbying’.
• The strictly legal implication is thus totally unrealistic in view of the fact that the executive
agencies “have given considerable leeway in implementing legislation through interpretation
and administrative rule-making.
• A pressure group plays the role of hide and seek in politics and, as such, it becomes
fundamentally different from a political party that plays its part openly in the political process
of the country. Moreover, the range of interest of a pressure group is so limited that its role in
the politics of the country varies from one point of time to another.
• The relationship between the two has become so close that, in practice, “functional representation
exists side by side with territorial representation.”
• Britain is a unitary state with a stable bi-party system. As there is the concentration of central
authority in the hands of the government situated at London, pressure groups are bound to
direct their activities towards the machinery of a single central government. Here the nature of
pressure group politics becomes basically different from that of its American counterpart where
federalism has affected not only the governmental but also the non-governmental spheres of
life.
• An initial distinction can also be made between sectional interest groups like the Automobile
Association or the Institute of Directors and cause groups like the League Against Cruel Sports
or National Viewers and Listeners Association that are bodies created specifically to lobby on
behalf of some general cause.
• A major illustration of the British pressure groups can be presented on the basis of their general
structure and organisation, kind and nature of the interests they represent, the weight of authority
they seek to exercise, the methods they want to employ and the like.
• The nature of public administration has now become such that the Government relies upon
outside bodies for technical advice and information, for co-operation in the framing of legislation,
and for help in the implementation of its policy.
• The role of these MPs may, thus, be seen in their actions, by words or deeds, in tabling a motion
or supporting a bill whether in the House or in its committees. Amendments to the official bills
can be made at the isntigation of pressure groups, with the Confederation of British Industries
and other pressure groups being particularly active with regard ot hte passage of the Finance
Bill thoruhg the House of Commons each year.
• Pressure groups have the greatest chance, of influencing legislation in Parliament when the
normal party alignment is broken. If there is a dissension among Government back-benchers
with regard to a particular piece of official policy, this can be exploited by the opponents of the
policy.
• The leadership of pressure groups is often unrepresentative and authoritarian, as it has to be
powerful if it is to be in a position to negotiate. The secrecy in decision-making is to a large
extent inevitable.”

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