This document provides an overview of interest groups, political parties, and elections. It discusses how interest groups differ from political parties in their goals and membership. It also examines how interest groups try to influence government through various strategies. The document then covers political party systems, functions of parties, and factors that influence voter turnout and how people vote in elections.

1. Chapter 9
Comparative Politics II
Interest Groups, Political Parties,
and Elections

2. Interest Groups
• Any collection of people trying to
influence government
• Nonpublicly accountable
organizations that attempt to promote
shared private interests by
influencing public-policy outcomes

3. Interest Groups Differ
from Political Parties
• Goals
• Parties acquire power through elections
• Interest groups focus on specific issues rarely
represented in government
• Nature of memberships
• Parties seek broad support
• Interest groups have a narrower membership
• Numbers
• Rarely more than 10-12 parties
• No limit on number of interest groups

4. Who Belongs?
• Pluralist view
- Multiplicity of groups
- Varied interests
- Optimistic view
• Elite view
- Majority from middle- and upper-classes
- Domination by business-related interests
- No organization by lower classes

5. Interest Groups
and Government
• Interest groups presuppose an existing
government worth trying to influence.
• As government grows, so do interest groups.
• Some interest groups take on government
functions (corporatism).
• The bureaucracy has become one of the
biggest and most powerful interest groups of
all.

6. Big Money
• The single most important factor in interest
group success
• Danger: “the best Congress money can buy.”
• Corruption (public office for private gain)
• Soft Money
• Contributing to parties and interest groups not
directly working for a candidate’s election
campaign.
• “If you don’t give, you get no access.”
• U.S. campaigns lengthy and costly

7. Political Action
Committees
(PACs)
• Set up specifically to contribute money
to election campaigns
• Originally an idea of labor unions
• Biggest spending from business
• Bulk of contributions to incumbents

8. Interest Group Strategies
• Approaching lawmakers
• Approaching the administration
• Approaching the judiciary
• Appeals to the public
• Demonstrations
• Violent protest
“Violence is as American as cherry pie.”
-- Black radical H. “Rap” Brown

9. Finding a Balance
Good of all
vs.
Good of particular
groups
There must be no “particular wills” to muddy
and distort the “general will,” that which the
whole community wants.
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

10. Political Parties
and Party Systems

11. Political Party
• Group seeking
to elect office-
holders under a
given label
Exist in almost all present-day
societies, democratic or not
Weak in U.S.

12. Functions
of Parties
• Bridge between
people and
government
• Aggregation of
interests
• Integration into the political system
• Political socialization
• Mobilization of voters
• Organization of government

13. Parties in
Democracies
• Centralization
• Degree of control
exercised by
national
headquarters
• Setting government policy
• Executive must work with legislative
• Party participation in government
• Financing the party
• Dependence on interest groups

14. Classifying
Parties
• Left (liberal)
• Center-left
• Centrist
• Center-right
• Right (conservative)

15. Party Systems
• One-party
• Totalitarian
• Dominant-party
• Opposition parties free to run, but rarely win
• Two-party
• Multiparty
• Two-plus party
• Fluid (or inchoate) party
• New and unstable democracies

16. Parties and
Electoral Systems
• Single-member
election districts
• Where a simple
plurality wins
– Tends to produce two-party or two-party plus
systems
Proportional representation
– Use multimember districts and assign
parliamentary seats in proportion to the
percentage of votes in that district
– Encourages parties to split

17. Types of Party
Competition
• Moderate pluralism
• Center-seeking
• Parties become
moderate, aiming for
large block of votes in
center of political
spectrum
Polarized pluralism
– Center-fleeing
– Parties become extremist, ignoring voters in center
– Can cause political unrest and civil war

18. Just because you don't take an interest in politics,
doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
Pericles - 430 BC (BCE)
"Regarding Government:
We call for the abolition
of damn near
everything;
We call for drastic
reductions in what's
left;
And we refuse to pay for
any of it!"
Platform synopsis by David Nolan, LP
Co-founder

19. Elections

20. Electoral
Systems
• Single-Member Districts
• Electoral system that elects one person per
district
• “First past the post” – FPTP
• Supports two-party system
• Advantages
• Inhibits the growth of extremism
• Gives clear parliamentary majority to one party
• Majoritarian system
• Disadvantages
• Losing parties get no representation

21. Electoral
Systems
• Proportional Representation
• Electoral systems based on multimember
districts
• Representatives elected by party’s percent of
vote
• Advantages
• Legislature accurately reflects public opinion and
party strength
• Disadvantages
• Often lead to multiparty systems
• Greater instability than two-party system

22. Voter Turnout
• Percent of those eligible
who vote
• U.S. peak in 1960 – 63%
• Sweden, Germany, Italy –
90%
U.S. turnout low historically
Lower in U.S. than in other democracies

23. U.S. Nonvoting:
The Debate
• Low electoral
participation
means that many
Americans are
turning away from
the political
system.
• Or, the decline
may mean that
Americans are
basically satisfied
with the system.

24. How Do
People Vote?
• Long-term variables
• Party identification
• Tendency to associate mentally with one party over
may years
• Easier to vote along party lines
• Important element in electoral stability
• Short-term variables
• Cause a person to vote one way for one
election, but not four years later.
• “Morality factor” awakened by Watergate scandal
• Economic conditions

25. Electoral
Alignment
• Realignment
• Major, long-
term shift in
party ID.
Dealignment
– Major, long-term decline in party ID

26. What Wins
Elections?
• Modern elections
• Rational choice manipulated by factors of
personality and the mass media
• “Keep it general, keep it happy, don’t mention
parties, and smile a lot.”
• Charisma
• Retrospective voting
• Candidate strategies

27. “Democracy: The
substitution of election by
the incompetent many for
appointment by the
corrupt few.”
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)