Chapter Overview

This chapter introduces students to the nature of interest groups and their variety in modern states. It explores how the interest group system represents public opinion in general and notes several circumstances that tend to make the interest group system unrepresentative. The problem of collective goods and participation in groups is also addressed. The chapter also brings in a typology of interest groups (sectoral, promotional, institutional) and looks at how the tactics chosen by interest groups are affected by the resources of the group and the political environment within which the group exists. An examination of the American Civil Rights Movement is used as an illustration of this. The remaining sections of the chapter discuss pluralism and neocorporatism as two important patterns of interest group involvement in policy making and discuss social movements as a critical part of politics in modern states. The chapter ends with detailed discussions of interest groups in France and Japan.

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