Advocacy group

This article is about political advocates. For computer associations, see Special Interest Group.

An interest group (also called an advocacy group, lobbying group, pressure group (UK), or special interest) is a group, however loosely or tightly organized, doing advocacy: those determined to encourage or prevent changes in public policy without trying to be elected.

Different labels

A person acting on their own or with corporate backing to achieve the goals of an interest group is called a lobbyist. In many countries, however, the term lobbyist has an official definition and lobbyists are required to register and disclose information about such efforts. The term advocacy group or interest group can be used even for groups that are not officially registered as lobbying concerns.

Interest groups are called by many different names, most of them intended to detract. One might be called:

• a pressure group if it uses particularly strong tactics (especially in Western Europe); or
• a private interest if it is seen as having a particular financial interest in the outcome, or a vested interest if it is already gaining from some status.

The term special interest

The term special interest is used for all of these variants, but never in reference to one's own political allies. The use of this term, especially in the United States, is often understood to imply that the "special" interest is not the "public" interest. Some dislike the term special interest, since they believe it carries a loaded, negative connotation. Instead, they prefer to use vested interests, particularistic groups, or most commonly, "interest groups".

Because of the potentially negative connotation, in politics the label "special interest" is often used by politicians to attack opposition groups. Recently, for instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger often used these terms in his successful 2003 campaign for Governor of California. He waved a broom promising to "sweep clean" the government of special interests, implying that these "interests" were dirty.

Types of groups

Interest groups are political organizations established to influence governmental action in a specific area of policy. This could be done by persuading legislators, working through a regulatory bureaucracy, engaging in legal proceedings, or other means.

Examples include:

• a corporation lobbying to win a specific government contract, often through a lobbying firm or other front;
• an employers' organization or trade association representing the interests of an entire industry, for instance seeking favorable tax policy or regulation;
• groups representing various demographic sectors of society, such as:
  • trade unions,
  • senior citizens,
  • persons with disabilities or
  • members of the bureaucracy itself;
• groups specifically set up to engage in single-issue politics on one issue only;
• think tanks with a particular ideological or economic theory guiding their analysis.

There is a lively debate amongst political scientists as to what exactly constitutes a legitimate interest group. Some hold that only groups with members (for instance, Common Cause or the National Rifle Association) are interest groups.

Others feel that interest groups are any non-government groups that try to affect policy, such as the National Space Society or the Planetary Society. Some people define it even more broadly, to include individual corporations, or even government agencies.

Sometimes "interest groups" are used to refer to groups within society, especially those who are believed to have similar political opinions on an issue or group of issues (e.g. seniors, the poor, etc.) who are not necessarily part of an organized group.

Goals of groups

Human-protective

Human-protective groups represent only one segment of society, such as professional bodies, veterans' organizations and trade unions. Membership in such groups is often restricted to members of the represented social segment. This type of group can also be referred to as sectional pressure groups.

Promotional

Promotional groups promote some cause greater than protection of specific humans. They claim to represent the common interests of mankind, non-specific rights of all humans, or potentially even all life on Earth. Such groups include Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Worldwide Fund for Nature. These ecological groups believe that their cause is for the mutual benefit of all the people on the planet, or all life, period. Their membership is open for people of all ages, so that they are much larger than protective groups. In the case of groups set up to promote specifically non-human causes, they can become extremely large: the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is the largest advocacy group in Europe with nearly one million members—more than the number of members in all three UK national political parties together.

Mixed

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish these two classes, because the actions of a group of one class may be characteristic of the other class. For example, the British Medical Association (BMA) supports the action against smoking, which is of general benefit to the wider population, not just medics.

Effectiveness compared to direct action

One study by Jon Agnone, a sociologist at the University of Washington, in 2004 compared the number of bills passed between 1960 and 1994 by the U.S. Congress with tactics used by "green" groups within the same year. The study showed that each protest raised the number of pro-environment bills passed by 2.2%, but that neither efforts at conventional lobbying on Capitol Hill nor the state of public opinion made any difference.

The study concluded that direct action, like chaining oneself to a bulldozer or throwing paint over company executives, is more likely to influence environmental policy than talking to politicians. Agnone presented his results to the American Sociological Association on August 17, 2004 at their meeting in San Francisco.

See also

• Lobbying
• Interest representation: Academic overview
• Pluralism
• Corporatism