Chapter 7 Interest Groups

1. Chapter 7 Interest Groups • The Nature of Interest Groups • Private organizations • try to persuade public officials to respond to their members • Unlike political parties • do not nominate candidates, focus on winning elections • Stimulate people to be involved in public affairs and to participate in politics • Problem • influence disproportionate to size and occasionally use unethical tactics

2. Role of Interest Groups • 1st Amendment • “the right of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” • Allows for creation of interest groups • Gun control? • Prayer in public school? • Increase in minimum wage? • Abortion? • Gay rights?

3. Political Parties and Interest Groups • Both consist of people who unite for a purpose… • Overlap • Important differences • Nominations • Political parties pick • Interest groups influence • Primary focus • Political parties who, noun • Interest groups what, issue • Scope • Range of public affairs

4. Interest Groups… Good or Bad • James Madison • Thought factions were bad • Undo influence of the few over the many • How stop? • Eliminate factions, eliminate freedom • Balance, many factions • Necessary evil

5. Positive attributes • Stimulate interest in public affairs • Why is this interest important? • Represent based on shared ideas not geography • Teachers • Farmers • Provide the gov’t with info • Employment, price levels, • Vehicles for political participation • One mom vs MADD • Checks and Balances • Keep tabs on public agencies • Compete • Limit power of each other • Clean air act? • Auto industry -vs- environmental

6. Negative Attributes • Influence • Proportion to size? • Dependant on how organized and financed not size… • Representation • Who and how many? • The world will never know • Views • Not all ways represent views of all their members • Normally driven by a small active few • Tactics • Bribery, threats, violence • abortion

7. Shapes and Sizes • Membership • Thousands, millions, hand full • Foundation • Economic interest • Business • labor • Ideas • Gay rights • Welfare • Protections of certain groups • Veterans, seniors, homeless • Multiple • Can belong to many groups

8. Groups based on Economic Interests: how people make their money Part One • Business • Examples • NAM: National Association of Manufacturers • Big business • Chamber of Commerce • Smaller businesses • Business Roundtable • 150 chief executive officers • Trade Associations • American trucking association, American Restaurant Association

9. Groups based on Economic Interests: how people make their money Part Two • Labor • Examples • AFL: American Federation of Labor • FOP: Fraternal Order of Police • Chapters in each state • Not always see eye to eye with National chapter

10. Groups based on Economic Interests: how people make their money Part Three • Agriculture • Examples • National Grange • Oldest, Most conservative • Focus on welfare of families • North east and Mid Atlantic States • American Farm Bureau • Largest, Most powerful • Midwest • opposing gov’t regulation • “Let us do our job” • National Farmers Union • Strength from smaller less fortunate farmers • Dirty Farmers • Upper Mid West and West

11. Groups based on Economic Interests: how people make their money Part Four • Certain professions • Require extensive training and specialization • Medicine, law, teaching • Examples • AMA: American Medical Association • Doctors • ABA: American Bar Association • Lawyers • NEA: National Education Association • Teachers • True impact • Why would these organizations have influence upon public policies disproportionate to their size?

12. Groups based on Economic Interests: how people make their money Part Five • Promote Causes • Welfare of Certain Groups • American Legion: vets (police action) • Veterans of Foreign Wars: Vets • NAACP: National Association for the Advancement of Colored People • Religious organizations • NCC: National Council of Churches • protestants • ADL: Anti-Defamation League • Jews • Public Interest Groups • Unlike other groups focus on benefiting all Americans • Public Good, health

13. All Groups are not Created Equal Who is likely to be more successful? Gun manufacturers or gunshot victims? Business or Consumers? Defense Contractors or Taxpayers? Why? Mancur Olson’s “Logic of Collective Action” says that: the smaller the group, the more concentrated the benefits of organization, the more likely organization will occur

14. Interest Group influence is dominated by for-profit groups at the expense of those that are less easily organized Organizations having Washington representation (%): Corporations 45.7 Trade/other business 17.9 Foreign Commerce/corporations 6.5 Professional Associations 6.9 Unions 1.7 Citizen’s Groups 4.1 Civil Rights/Minority 1.3 Social Welfare/Poor 0.6

15. Iron/Cozy Triangle A close relationship among special interests, congressional committees, and the bureaucracy This community can have very extensive collective power if all 3 sides of the triangle want the same thing Are relatively impervious to interference from Congress as a whole, the White House, or the Public

16. The Corn Iron Triangle Corn has become a victim or its own success. Yields have become very high. What would you expect to happen to price? The market price is less than the cost of growing the corn. What would you then expect to happen to supply? Wrong. In order to support the flow of cheap corn, the government gives direct cash subsidies to farmers for the difference between their cost and the market price. How would you expect farmers to respond? Increase production. Why does the government do this? Very strong relationship (Iron Triangle) between Congressional Agriculture Committees, Corn Processors (mainly Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill), and the Department of Agriculture

17. The Corn Iron Triangle Who benefits from this Iron Triangle? Food production is a low profit, small growth business because here are a lot of competitors and limits on how much we can eat. But processed food solves those problems. Corn can be processed into a variety of products (i.e. high-fructose corn syrup) which add a lot of value to food processors Because corn is so cheap these products are very inexpensive on a cost/calorie basis so can be offered in very large sizes (supersizes). Who suffers from this Iron Triangle? Unfortunately, this also great increases our obesity and adds to the malnutrition of countless others in the world whose own agriculture cannot compete with cheap U.S. corn.

18. Military-Industrial Complex What are the three poles of Eisenhower’s Military-Industrial-Complex Iron Triangle? Defense committees, interest groups (military contractors), and the bureaucracy (the military) What’s the danger of the MIC? Tradeoff between military spending and domestic social spending

19. Military-Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warned: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone; it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children”

20. Military-Industrial Complex Greater danger is that we must have some justification for military spending Operates best in a climate of fear Encourages rather than discourages military intervention Why was the Cold War an ideal context for the Military-Industrial Complex? Have we found a replacement for Communism as a perpetual enemy? What about terrorism?

21. Potential v. Actual Membership of Various Groups Group: Potential Membership Nat’l Consumer League 300,000,000 Af’n Am’n: NAACP 30,500,000 Nat’l Taxpayers Union 180,000,000 Physicians: AMA 620,000 U.S. League of S&Ls 3,782 Air Transport Ass’n 60 Tobacco Institute 11 Actual Membership 8,000 400,000 200,000 271,000 2,500 22 11