A number of weeks ago, I wrote about political parties and I attempted to explain the functions of parties in our political system. I said that they have a number of functions including: "socializing" or rather explaining to citizens how the political system works; organizing government; and recruiting members and political leaders. Probably their most important function is to represent a broad spectrum of interests within the framework of a particular ideology. Thus they function to aggregate interests over a wide variety of public policy issues and therefore they need to have a policy stance ready in a range of areas like education, the environment, defence, health care etc. If a particular political party becomes the government they will be expected to bring forward a series of coherent ideas that "fit" the particular ideology and values of that party while also recognizing the need to accommodate and reach out to the electorate who did not vote for them. The art of governing is often an act of compromise.
Interest groups, on the other hand, do not have to aggregate interests across a broad spectrum. Their purpose is to recruit and retain members who have one policy agenda in mind. I was reminded of this over the last few weeks as I listened to the ongoing debate over gun control in the United States. The National Rifle Association is a very powerful interest group and interest groups have a very important role in politics.
When governments make decisions, they are often led to policies that will have the biggest, positive impact on voters. Note that governments usually deliver bad news legislation right after they have been elected to office. They hope that the electorate will forget tax hikes or program cuts by the time the next election rolls around. Conversely, governments often deliver good news just before an election so that there is a feeling of good will that can be carried to the ballot box. (Just a note here: British Columbians have long memories and the strategy of overturning an election promise does not go over well here. We will see in May if the HST has been forgotten).
Anyway, my point is that some interest groups have the power to push a government's agenda toward a particular policy. They do this because they have "captured" their members' interest around a single issue, which can then be presented to government as an idea with significant public support. Powerful interest groups have powerful communication skills. When an interest group lauds a government decision, they can provide important external credibility to the state's decision making processes and policies. Thus it is difficult for government to act contrary to a powerful lobby group.
The way I have just described an interest group suggests that they are arms-length organizations that work to shape public policy from the outside by influencing public opinion. This is a fairly accurate description of their role in the system, yet it should be noted that interests groups can sometimes work to support state interests. In a wonderful book entitled Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism and Feminism in Canada, published in 1993, the academic Leslie A. Pal argued that the state can use interest groups to help shape public opinion in a particular direction and that in fact, the state's choice as to which interest groups might receive public funding could be dominated by those groups which best represents the state's idea of "good" public values.
Interest groups are important in our democracy so we should consider how their voices impact policy decisions. When advocacy groups express concerns about funding cuts, they may not only be concerned about their survival as a viable group but they also may be expressing the fear that their cause is no longer an "interest of the state" and therefore may lessen one opinion among many in a diverse democracy.
The key is to see that interest groups have a critical role to play in shaping public opinion and values but we need to remain critical of those groups so that opposing voices can also enter into the democratic dialogue.
