Interest groups and voter ignorance

Résumé du document

Certain interest groups are often depicted as pursuing only their self-interest. They are supposed to "push government to enact policies that benefit small constituencies at the expense of the general public". These criticisms lead to the creation of a new word: lobbying, which designates the attempts made by policymakers to influence policymakers. That perhaps explains why the excessive power of interest groups is very often feared. The last example of this kind of fear is the book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. In this book, the two scholars argue that the Iraq war and other decisions made by the Bush administration were decided because of pressure by the Israel lobby and that these decisions were against the general interest of the United States. Furthermore, interest groups "have increased in visibility these forty last years, whereas the parties have declined in importance". Therefore, the study of interest groups is especially interesting today and we will see more of them in this document.

Extraits

[...] This increase in the amount of information available to decision makers raises several questions: First, is all the information provided by interest groups really useful for the policy making process or are there some information which are not useful? Second, does this increase in the amount of information available not threaten to slow the policy making process by increasing the time of deliberation in the Congress? As Wittman points out in his book The Myth of Political Failure: Why Political Institutions Are Efficient, “interest groups reduce transactions costs by giving legislators information” and R. Arnold Douglas points out that “legislators are not alone. They learn from interest groups [ Richard A. [...]

[...] First, interest groups need people in order to function. Interest groups, like political parties or associations, need indeed people who are willing to spend time for them. Hence interest groups “afford people the opportunity to participate in the political process”[viii]. And people involved in the political process acquire information and thus are less ignorant. Furthermore, interest groups give people the feeling that they can change politics and that their time spent for the interest group is essential because otherwise their issue wouldn't have visibility. [...]

[...] This suggests that leaders of interest groups are aware that people are ignorant. That's why, they want to provide them with the most information they can in order to educate them. Interest groups try indeed to get attention in the media or if they fail to do so, decide initiate a public relations campaign”[xi]. However, interest groups have a lot of other means in order to get attention: they can organize a demonstration[xii], a press conference[xiii], give teachers material for class utilization[xiv] or even organize seminars for teachers[xv]. [...]

[...] That's why interest groups use more and more grassroots lobbying[xxxvii]. Hence, people are more informed of the activities of interest groups. Third, interest groups often try to “redefine the issues” in order to “neutralize hostile reactions”[xxxviii]. For example, they can emphasize the benefits of a policy for some people, without speaking about the costs of this policy for the collectivity. In so doing, they hope that public opinion will not fight against the bill they favor. The problem is that by so doing, interest groups don't reduce voter ignorance but rather increase it because interest groups guide the debates in a way that favors theirs positions but not in a way that is useful for democratic debates. [...]

[...] The second section examines the help given by interest groups to lawmakers regarding the information they provide to them and the third section discusses the possible negative side effects of interest groups for voter ignorance and thus democracy. I. Interest groups and the education of people First of all, why do interest groups provide today information to the citizens? David Truman argued in his book, The Governmental Process that “interest groups develop as society become more complex”[vi]. Truman explains that our society became more complex because of the industrial revolution and the following specialization of labor. [...]