Campaigns/Interest Groups

Where political parties are strong, interest groups are likely to be

• Equally strong
• independent
• weak
• more numerous

What is an Interest Group?

• A group of people who share common goals and organize to influence government policy
• The ideas and attitudes that signifcant number of americans hold about government and political issues
• Technique which everyone in a group has equal chance of being selected
• A measurement of how much the sample results might differ from sample universe

What does it mean to lobby?

• A measurement of how much the sample results might differ from sample universe
• To persuade government officials to support the polices their interest group favors
• The ideas and attitudes that signifcant number of americans hold about government and political issues
• A group of people that is to be studied

What is a Public Interest Group?

• Authorization to act given to a representative
• Method of polling in which wording of questions "push" respondees towards a particular answer
• A small group of people who are typical of the larger group being studied
• Groups that seek policy goals that it believes will benefit the nation (general public) not just themselves

—A group of people who share a point of view about an issue and unite to promote their beliefs?

• Actual Group
• Interest Group
• Amicus curiae briefs
• Class action lawsuit

Which of these groups is not an interest group?

• AARP
• NRA
• Democratic Party
• NOW

What does an interest group do?

• Works at Congress
• Imitates Government
• Influences Government
• The Unspeakable

Why do people join interest groups?

• Increase money
• Increase their size
• Increase influence
• Decrease strength

A strategy by which organized interests seek to influence the passage of legislation by exerting direct pressure on members of the legislature.

• Hyperpluralist thoery
• Lobbying
• Olson's Law of Large Groups
• Pluralist theory

In contrast to interest groups, political parties

• work to change public policies 
• advocate for the interests of their members
• are concerned with the whole range of poltical affairs 
• collect money from members to advance their interests