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Sahil Parikh
Interest Groups
Professor Kostiaev
February 10, 2019
Decline of the Group Approach in American Politics

The group approach to politics came into prominence in American politics when the old

method of formal framework of understanding the government and its working became

irrelevant. The old framework purely focused on political parties and paid less or non-existent

attention to the interest groups. It believed that the political parties are the representative of

public and they can only represent public. It disapproved of an idea where a small group of

public can make their own group with the help of resources and can overpower or influence the

political parties in a unprecedented and significant way. However, with the emergence of group

approach of politics, interest groups were identified and were researched on their operations and

their influence on politics. It focused on the behavioral framework of politics or in other words it

observed and analyzed the practical aspect of politics. It included the trade between players of

government and interest groups. However, the group approach became irrelevant too as quoted

by Baumgartner

Problems such as vague definitions, conflicting conclusions, unsystematic research

techniques, inability to explain the lack of mobilization by disadvantaged social groups
and other issues had existed for a long time.

Therefore, the lack of a formal structure and transparency in the group approach led to the

demise of group approach. Every scholar would have his or her own conclusions with their own

unsystematic research technique leading to everyone having their own view of functioning of the

teamwork of government and interest groups. Hence, the group approach declined in American

politics due to scholarly differences and its lack of accuracy in identifying the relationship

between government and interest groups.

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One of the biggest challenges to the group approach was conflicting conclusions

regarding the relationship between interest groups and government stated by different scholars.

Now, it is understandable that the functioning of the government and interest groups is not basic

algebra and the answer to the functioning of multiple institutions cannot have one answer.

However, there cannot also be a huge discrepancy towards the functioning of the institutions. In

the book Basic Interests, Baumgartner states,

Among the most serious intellectual problems for the development of a pluralist view of
the roles and activities of interest groups was the fact that pluralism was never a theory at
all, but rather a perspective. Those who worked within the approach disagreed with each
other on significant points and objected even to being referred to as a school. This can be
seen clearly in Robert Dahl’s vehement rejoinder to Jack Walker’s assertion that there
was, indeed, a pluralist school of thought focusing on the competition among elites. As
Dahl pointed out, those active in the approach espoused a great range of views.

The fact that interest groups undermined the role of government as an institution, the groups

amongst the scholars had conflicting views on the influence interest groups commanded over the

government institutions. Some of the scholars targeted elites and the substantial influence they

commanded on the government as suggested by Robert Dahl. Therefore, the disagreements

among the scholar on the influence of interest groups in the government led to discrediting of

scholars view on the functioning of the government. One set of scholars would argue that it is the

interest groups controlling the government, whereas another group would argue that both

government and interest groups work hand in hand for the good of the country. Baumgartner

talks about Truman and states,

According to Truman’s ideas of mobilization in response to threats, in the absence of any

overt barriers to mobilization, those groups in society, be they workers, industries, social
groups, ethnic groups, or whatever, would form interest groups and mobilize for political
action whenever it was in their interest to do so. Ofcourse each mobilization could set off
a countermobilization by those with different views, and the end result would be a set of
interest groups accurately reflecting the needs and desires of the population. Truman’s
ideas seemed to explain why many groups formed (and he gave many examples of how
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groups did indeed organize in response to economic crises, wars, and other threats).
Further, they explained the important representational role of groups, casting groups in a
more favorable light than was often done by the muckrakers and others who complained
of the “undue influence” of the “pressure boys.”

Above quote is an example of different views of scholars regarding the “pressure boys” and

“interest groups”. One is arguing that interest groups create more efficient system in times of

crisis especially economic crisis and the other argument is that the “pressure boys” create

pressure for their own selfish goals neglecting the needs of other people in the country.

Therefore, the biased conclusions regarding the relationship and influence interest groups

command over government led to the decline of the use of group approach in politics.

One of the other reasons why group approach declined was the unsystematic research

technique applied by scholars to understand the structure of government including the role of

interest groups within them. Every scholar or group of scholar had their own measures of

assessing the strength or role of an institution in the government. The fact that there was no

systematic research technique, it was easier to identify the relationship stakeholders and players

in the government and interest groups shared. However, it was highly vague to identify who

commanded more influence and was more important in running the country. Baumgartner talks

about lack of structure and states,

Even among those who focused on the diversity of interests present in the pressure
system, and who were therefore grouped together as the “pluralists” there was never a
strong theoretical structure that joined all the work together. Pluralists lacked a single
voice, as Robert Dahl noted. There was no pluralist “theory” in the sense of the
development of testable hypotheses that could orient a school of researchers. Indeed,
Mancur Olson used the group approach to illustrate his contention that “science attempts
to go beyond descriptions, histories, terminologies, and typologies to genuine
hypothetico-deductive theory. Schools of scientific thought that fail to develop deductive
theories resting on tested hypotheses never last” The approach was bedeviled by
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ambiguities about its goal—empirical description or normative evaluation—but it was

further troubled by theoretical incoherence.

The fact that there was no real way of assessment to measure power owned by a stakeholder, it

always led to confusion regarding who was more influential. If one uses election endowment

money to assess strength than interest groups would be the most powerful as interest groups

finance the election campaigns of politicians. However, if one uses voting power of the congress

and power derived by government during any emergency, then the government would seem to be

more powerful. In addition, if the power to declare war is considered as a measure than the

government is more powerful than interest groups. However, if we look at the stakeholders that

benefit from the war and then influence government policies after war than interest groups would

be considered more powerful. Hence, the lack of currency for the measurement of power led to

the discrepancies in the structure derived to understand the functioning of the government and

the interest groups influencing them.

In conclusion, the demise of group approach can be credited to multiple factors, however,

the two most important factors would be lack of formal systematic research technique and

inconclusive conclusions regarding the relationship shared by the interest groups and

government. Arguably, lack of formal systematic research technique leads to inconclusive

conclusions regarding the relationship shared by interest groups and government. The inability to

provide accurate and universally approved structure regarding functioning of the government

lead to demise of use of group approach in understanding the functioning of government

machinery in the United States.

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Bibliography

Baumgartner, Frank R, and Beth L Leech. Basic Interests: the Importance of Groups in Politics

and in Political Science. Princeton University Press, 1998.