9 Interest Groups
I. Introduction– The Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Puzzle of Interest Group Power↑
Who rules the United States? Does the American constitution enable the public to control public policy? Have the various institutional changes that have altered the constitutional system—changes in federalism, constitutional law and rights, as well as the development of the bureaucratic state—enhanced or undermined popular representation? This chapter will consider these questions by examining the role of interest groups in American politics. There are no simple answers to these questions. Our ability to know the precise effects of interest group power is limited, because it is extremely difficult to determine whether the American federal government, responds to the interests of “the public” or the power of interest groups. Nevertheless, even though it can be difficult to determine the precise impact of interest groups on American politics, we can determine the features of American government that enable interest group power, and the changes in American society and politics that have shaped the character of interest groups over time.
Theories of interest group power in American politics fall into two broad categories: pluralist theories and “power elite” theories (with many individual theories falling somewhere between these two extremes.) Pluralists argue that interest groups play a relatively benign or even productive role in politics, particularly in American politics. Pluralists do not believe that interest groups necessarily “dominate” government in a way that has an adverse effect upon society. Pluralists think that James Madison’s predictions about the character of American society in Federalist Paper #10 were correct. “Power” in American society is widely distributed amongst different groups, not least because political power (understood as the ability to exert influence over others) has many different sources: wealth, knowledge, education, numbers, organization, fame, etc. Given the wide variety of sources of power, and given the conflicts between different kinds of economic elites (the kinds of conflicts anticipated by Madison), interest groups in the United States do not form an oligarchic ruling class. There are many different kinds of interest groups, many different ways to exercise power within the American political system, and no permanent ruling class of interest that is always able to achieve its ends. Interest groups, therefore, do not distort American democracy; they are part of American democracy, and provide important links between government and the people. Without interest groups to provide information, mobilize the public, and lobby government officials, American society would arguably be less democratic.1
Critics of pluralism argue, in different ways, that the “chorus” of interest-groups in American society “sing with an upper class accent.”2 One modest version of this approach– sometimes referred to as “neo-pluralism”