Pressure groups also allow people to participate in politics so they are good for political participation. People may not want to join any particular party because they disagree with the policies but they may want to join a pressure group that shares the same issues as there own so that they can participate in politics without having to join any party which has policies that a person disagrees with.
They also allow the power of the government to be spread out and stop the government from becoming too powerful and becoming an elective dictatorship. They do this by pressuring the government about very important issue and with that issue if there is a lot of public support then they could change the government policies.
These are all the reasons for the way in which pressure groups help democracy but just like I said at the begging there are ways in which pressure groups undermine democracy and this can be in a very strong way.
The way in which pressure groups undermine democracy is by going on strike over pay. For example the FBU, fire union. Important people who work in society like the fire people by going on strike they could risk the lives of many people. Also when the NUT went on strike all the schools had to shut this is also undermining democracy because it is like bribing the government to give them exactly what they want, the same thing with the trade unions for rail.
They also undermine democracy by mostly the larger groups who have more money getting what they want and the smaller groups with less money having difficulty in getting what they want. The larger groups with more money sometimes sponsor MP’s and this way are an insider group and will probably have a bigger influence to decision making.
Pressure groups internally are not always democratic. Most leaders of most pressure groups are not elected meaning that they try to stand up for their issues or their members but are not elected themselves. This in my opinion is undermining democracy because if they wanted to help democracy they would also want to be elected especially if they allow for pluralism to occur I feel as though the internal side of pressure groups should also be democratic.
After looking at all the arguments I can see that pressure groups are a very important part of politics and the society even if some of them do undermine democracy. I still feel that the majority of pressure groups do help democracy and also allow the people have a say in politics and allow people to get involved with politics. Pressure groups are important in my opinion because without them I feel as though the government would be too powerful and could change to an elective dictatorship. Pressure groups make sure that pluralism occurs in most cases and allows an easier access for people to put forward there views.
Although some activities that pressure groups do I believe undermines democracy the majority of things they do does help democracy. So overall I would say that pressure groups help democracy rather then undermine it and I totally believe the pluralistic way of running things and that I feel that power should be spread out and not kept within a small number of people in one place.
Without pressure groups we probably would not be able to raise issues that concern us and without pressure groups we would be unable to have the force or the power to influence the decisions of the government makes and if we do not have pressure groups the government could change our rights ad we would not be bale to oppose the government (an elective dictatorship). This is the main reason why I feel that pressure groups are important to our society and they do help democracy.
