Pressure groups also represent minority groups and keep their demands in the public eye. These include FOREST or “Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco” who defend the rights of smokers who say that they have been heavily victimised by the public and the media since the smoking ban in Britain. Another group would be the Stonewall group who represent gays in Britain and who look after the rights of gays in Britain. This makes sure that the minority groups still have their rights defended.
Pressure groups also help educate members of the public. Groups such as ASH- who raised awareness of the problems of smoking and were also one of the many groups who helped ban smoking in all public spaces- have helped educate the public on many other issues. Others include the RSPCA who have helped keep the protection of living animals at the front of public opinion and also have made sure particular bills have been put into practice and also made law.
Pressure Groups also bring expert knowledge into both the government and also the public. An example of this would be Greenpeace who have a number of prestigious scientists to help find findings for campaigns and also to support the knowledge that they have. This is a good part of pressure groups because it means that (especially for Greenpeace) their findings cannot be disputed because their findings and evidence has been made by prestigious scientists.
Members of pressure groups can also be brought in to be part of think tanks. If the party want a new policy, they can bring in members of pressure groups who can generate new ideas that will support their campaigns and also show that that party are supporting a particular cause which will in turn give them more voters in the new general election. As a result members of pressure groups are brought in often to help a party generate new ideas.
Pressure groups are also play a big part in enhancing the Parliamentary democracy that we live in today. MP’s are well known for not knowing what the public feel about a particular point of view. As a result, pressure groups can protest near Parliament and so raise awareness of a particular point. An example of this would be the marches right across the country in protest of the war in Iraq. As a result, the politicians in Parliament couldn’t not see that public opinion was totally against the war in Iraq and as a result many politicians started publicly denouncing the war.
Pressure groups are also well known for being dynamic and responsive to a new policy or a new law. If a party or government bring in a new policy, pressure groups can easily start up an “e-petition” which people can start straight away putting their name down on. Just as easily pressure groups can quickly start a public campaign against a particular policy or idea and so it doesn’t matter how quickly a policy is brought into law, pressure groups can go just as fast to start a campaign against the policy.
Pressure groups are known as being especially democratically organised. An example of this would be “Fathers for Justice” Matthew O'Connor- the founder of the group- said that instead of only the main people in the group thinking of ideas for protests and the rest of the members having to agree to that idea, O’Conner said that the ordinary members were usually the people who thought of the maddest ideas for protests. However, one of the planned protests was to kidnap the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair’s son, O’Conner said that he would not support such a idea and so terminate it,
Finally Pressure Groups can make a huge different with a lot of things. When the “Make Poverty History” campaign started, a lot of the poorest countries in the world had debts that made it that they could hardly even afford to pay back the interest on the debts. After the many concerts around the world, the “G8” countries decided to cancel all debt for the poorest countries in the world. Also, “Fathers for Justice” were able to change the laws so that fathers can have more time with their children. If it wasn’t for these things, many people could be still very disadvantaged in the world.
However, there are many criticisms towards Pressure Groups; one of these is that Pressure Groups are very sectional and selfish. In other words, Pressure Groups only ever look after their own members and they won’t stop till they get what they want. An example of this would be with the fuel protests; the truckers basically brought the whole country to a standstill for nearly a week.
Also, Pressure groups are said to never take the interests of the general public into consideration when they think about protesting and are very narrow minded. An example of this would be “Plane Stupid” who recently protested against Heathrow’s third runway. They didn’t consider that many people would be delayed with the disruptions to Heathrow. Carrying on with Heathrow, the Pressure Groups against the third runway only see that a third runway would make more noise and air pollution, they don’t care that an extra runway would bring more revenue towards Heathrow and that it would keep Heathrow as the main hub for transatlantic flights to and from America.
Marxists would argue that only a few Pressure Groups dominate. These are mostly middle class dominated groups such as the BMA. Union’s- Marxist’s would argue- aren’t really listened to. The reason why it is mostly Middle Class Pressure Groups are listened to more than Unions is mostly because the government would know that people such as doctor’s know what they’re talking. Also people such as doctors and nurses have a very good press so if they do ask for a pay rise, nearly always the government usually give it to them because it is good press for the government of the day.
Another criticism is that Pressure Groups can be very obstructive to advancement. This would include the animal rights groups who won’t under any circumstances let animals such as rats be tested on the medical reasons. This is despite that such medicines cannot be tested on any humans until they have been through a rigorous testing programme. This means those diseases such as Cancer or Parkinson’s disease may never be cured because animal rights protestors won’t let animals be tested on.
Pressure Groups are also said to create social disharmony in Britain. An example would be the “Keep Sunday Sacred” group who wanted to keep the shops closed on a Sunday because Sunday is the day for Church. Margaret Thatcher though wanted to open shops to keep money coming into economy. As a result, a huge argument ensued about whether the nation should keep Sunday sacred or not.
The New Right would say that Pressure Group leaders don’t represent the members of that Pressure Group. You could be a member of the Automobile Association (AA) but you might not approve of the AA’s policy of agreeing with the government on taxing road users if they drive at peak times on motorways. The leader(s) of the AA didn’t bother consulting the members on this policy and as a result some of the AA’s members don’t agree with this policy.
Critics also say that Pressure Groups can sometime oversimplify complicated issues such as the third World debt. Make Poverty History claimed that as soon as the debt was written off, the third world countries would be able to prosper and become a great country. They completely forgot the fact that the reasons why countries such as Zimbabwe. These countries have become so poor because of dictators who have brought so much debt to that country that when the economy goes, the country can’t pay them off and so the country becomes bankrupt. So- critics argue- if the debt is paid off for all countries, more dictators will come into power and the whole cycle will start again.
Pressure Groups also use politics of coercion to sometimes get their point across or even try and force someone to do something that the pressure groups want. An example would include animal rights protestors terrorising the scientists who work at the labs to try and force them to resign. This shows the animal rights protestors trying to scare the scientists out of working at the labs again. If this happens then- because there are less scientists- the labs can’t use as many animals for testing. This is a criticism because they are involving innocent people -who are just trying to do their job and who only want their wage- in a fight against people in a much higher position.
Pressure Groups are also said to subvert democracy. An example of this happening would be the incident at Brent Spa. Greenpeace were angry because BP wanted Brent Spa (an oil refinery based in the North Sea) to be allowed to just sink into the sea. Greenpeace said that the sinking would mean a lot of oil would spill into sea causing major problems for sea animals. As a result, some Greenpeace protestors got on board Brent Spa and said they weren’t coming off until BP allowed the refinery to be brought into a harbour and broke into pieces. A while later BP gave in and allowed this to happen.
Finally, Pressure Groups create silent minorities in society. These include people who smoke in Britain. Now that the government have banned smoking in public places, all smokers now have a stigma attached to them. To make matters worse- whereas groups against smokers have loads of pressure groups to join- smokers only have one prolific group, FOREST.
In conclusion, Pressure groups help to maintain the pluralism in our democracy. This means that for every pro pressure group, they’ll always be a pressure group against the same issue. This keeps the balance of society in tact and this is why Pressure Groups are an important part of society and government on a local and national level.
by
boxersforever (student)
