What are the reasons for the increasing importance of pressure group activity?

First appeared in Ancient Greece, democracy now is undoubtedly the most popular form of governance. Today representative democracy is accepted by most of the countries and the UK is not an exception. Representative democracy is an indirect form of democracy, where policy making responsibility is placed in the hands of decision-makers, who are elected, accountable and can be got rid of peacefully. Certain rights and freedoms are recognised and the Rule of Law exists. Although this sounds good in theory, it is, perhaps, not so “sunny” in practice. In recent years a strong disillusionment with politicians who form the government happened as they seem not to represent the citizens. Thus a shift occurred: from party politics to pressure groups. A pressure group can be described as an organised group that does not usually stand for elections - there were several cases when some pressure groups actually did, but perhaps they were trying to attract attention, - but seeks to influence legislation. In recent years pressure groups became extremely popular, the number of them runs into thousands starting from small local organisations such as Save the Radley Lakes to those huge as Amnesty International. There are a lot of reasons for such a shift the most important of which will be now examined. They are: similarity of political parties, which was already mentioned, the success of direct action and the increase in number of access points.

As it was said before, the membership in political parties has seriously fallen in recent years. Comparing with 1950‘s, when there were around 4 million people involved in party politics, the number of politicians today is around 400,000 and percentage of turnout in elections decreased from 85% to 60-65% throughout the same period of time. Thus, the number of people involved in pressure group activity has increased and the range of issues which they are concerned with is gigantic. Why? One of the most important reasons is similarity of political parties. If we look at British parties we will find out that now the three main parties - Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat- claim that they are non-ideological, thus they all are somewhere near the centre of the political spectrum. However, a lot of Britons have quite radical political views - either right or left. So are they represented by current government? Not really perhaps. People do not trust politicians any more so they want to bring changes in legislation themselves. Those with right views join interest groups like English Defence League (EDL), those with left – UK uncut etc. However, it is questionable whether all pressure groups are heard and regarded by the government. As I have mentioned already nowadays those politicians who have power in their hands are somewhere in the so-called ‘liberal framework’. In our post-industrial time most people prefer to reject any ideological conceptions. Moreover, quite a lot of them are strongly against any ideologies regarding Nazi-Germany, Communist Soviet Union etc. Taking all this into consideration I think that although the similarity of political parties is one of the reasons for an increase in pressure group activity it is not the most important one. The fall in turnout can be explained by the apathy of the majority people to politics in whole.

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The next reason for the recent increase in pressure group activity is the effectiveness of direct action. Although, insider pressure groups were always seen as more influential, things have been changed. Many pressure groups now think that they can exert more pressure on politicians by mobilising peoples opinion, thus direct action seems now to be more important than pursuing links with the government. With the growth of an interest group its importance grows also. Decision-makers may ignore small local groups as Save the Radley Lakes - although this group actually reached success - but they cannot simply turn the blind eye to those like Amnesty International. Many people take part in the demonstrations of those interest groups, thus they are recognised and their issues are put on the political agenda. But not only size matters. Fathers for Justice provide us with a great example of how effective a pressure group can be if its members are really committed. Although they claim that they have tens thousands members only 20 of them actually took part in the demonstrations. But they have used ‘stuns’ by dressing as superheroes and climbing London’s architectural heritage. They have attracted a lot of attention and so managed to change legislation slightly. However, some outsider pressure groups that are not regarded by the government often act in a violent undemocratic way. A good example of such an organisation is Animal Liberation Front (ALF) - a pressure group which defends animal rights. Cambridge University planned to build a new laboratory where new drugs were supposed to be tested on animals. To prevent this project members of ALF sent bomb-letters to the scientists, which exploded in the hands of those “cruel demons who are testing medicines on animals”. Thus the laboratory was never built and the pressure group succeeded. So success of direct action seems to be an important reason for a recent increase in pressure group activity. However, some groups sometimes go beyond the boundaries harming our society.

The last but not least reason for a significant increase in pressure group activity is the rise in the number of so-called access points. In the past in the UK the decision-making power was mainly concentrated in the Parliament, thus there was a little opportunity for outsider pressure groups to influence legislature. But things have changed. Today the decision-making is spread over a much wider range of institutions. They are: the European Union – which the UK had joined in 1973 and which deals with various issues such as trade and employment; Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland governments which operate on the local level; the courts which became really influential after the passage of Human Rights Act in 1998 [a coalition of environmental groups forced the government to conduct additional reviews into the decision to build a third runway to Heathrow airport in March 2010 in the High Court]; and the extra-party institutions called ‘think tanks’. The last is probably the most important since think tanks have the task of feeding policy options into the government machinery. By lobbying those institutions interest groups can influence legislation on early stages. Professional lobbyist are keen on identifying the key decision makers, secure contacts with them and make sure, that the information that a pressure group wishes to disseminate finds the appropriate target. However, sometimes think tanks fall in the trap of corporate lobbying of some sectional pressure groups and begin to act in the interests of those groups rather that the citizens. A good example of a pressure group operating on all stages of the decision-making process is the Countryside Alliance which was debating against fox hunting ban in the period 2003-2004 [although they did not succeed]. Considering all this, I think that the increase in the number of access points is probably the main reason for an increase in pressure group activity. New institutions give people more opportunities to influence decision-making process and they use this chance by participating in pressure group activity.

Thus, there are quite a lot of reasons for an increase in pressure group activity, some of which are definitely more important than others. From those that are mentioned I consider the rise in the number of access-points to be the crucial one. Moreover nowadays people can make ‘those at the top’ to hear them by using direct action. The secret of success of pressure groups is ‘never give up’. If the government rejects the ideas of a pressure group it may turn to the courts and thus will have a chance to force politicians to change legislation.

Compiled by Dariia Halatova

07/12/11