Pros And Cons Of Interest Groups In Relation With The Government

Interest groups are broadly defined as any association of individuals or organizations formed on the basis of one or more shared concerns. Interest groups attempt to promote, defend, or articulate their interests to influence public policies and decisions in its favor and to create advantages for its cause.
Clive Thomas of Encyclopædia Britannica notes on the importance of having a general description for interest groups as compared with older and narrower descriptions that only included private associations that have a distinct and formal organization. These old definitions however don’t cover the fact that there are many associations which aren’t private as well as many informal groups that are considered as interest groups. This displays
Interest groups are beneficial and good in the way that they help and protect the concerns of certain interests and individuals in contrast to the intimidating majority so this gives way for more people to speak up, suggest, and express opinions. They can also play a role in performing checks and balances on how the majority uses its power. Having specific interests also helps when there are situational problems that needs to be solved by political departments because they can lend a hand in their respective expertise as well as in a way being able to produce a more active and informed citizenry when they disseminate information to their members and the
Bianco and Canon enumerate the strategies interest groups use like speaking to the government officials to influence their decisions thus securing their interests, make legislative proposals at times that they deliver to the legislators as part of their lobbying efforts, do research on topic of concern to the group with the belief that the congress are more likely to notice and accept an interest group’s proposal if there is research reports to back it up, and testify before congressional meetings to raise what they deem to be important issues. Interest groups aside from lobbying and what was mentioned above also perform outside strategies to strengthen the possibility of achieving what they want. Some of this would be having signature campaigns or letter-writing campaigns to show to government officials that there is an issue expressed by a large group of citizens that needs to be addressed, using the media to publicize the group’s concerns, supporting certain candidates during election with hopes that if that candidate wins he or she will produce laws that benefit the interest group and make decisions advantageous to