To what extent are the largest pressure groups the most successful ones?

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To what extent are the largest pressure groups the most successful ones?

Some pressure groups are more powerful than others as some succeed while others fail. Success in pressure groups is defined by how they affect government policy, their agenda-setting power and how well they can change people’s ideologies.

Large groups mean that they have more members. This in turn leads to more donations. Chequebook groups tend to get most of their finance from their members, for example Greenpeace get 90% of their income from their members. This means that large groups tend to be wealthy.

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Being a wealthy group means that they have financial and economic power. For example, major corporations such as are the main source of employment and investment in the economy so the government will seek their cooperation. For wealthy groups that aren’t business groups will possess financial strength to employ professional lobbyists and public relations consultants.

However, it is the wealth not the size of the pressure group that makes them economically powerful and the biggest pressure groups are not always the most economically powerful. The CBI is more economically powerful than TUC despite the TUC having seven million ...

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