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8.2: Strength in Numbers

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    287381
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    Most people have political preferences. These preferences vary in origin and strength, and not everyone has a firm stance on every issue. Still, almost all of us can articulate something about how the government works that we would like to either change or keep the way it is.

    Although we have political preferences, most of us lack the individual power to do much about them. Unless you are a government official, a celebrity, or some other influential person, your ability to impact politics on your own is severely limited. Popular sovereignty means that power rests with the people, but large populations mean that each person possesses only a minuscule fraction of that power.

    We can increase our power by combining it with that of others who share our interests. Alone, you might struggle to get the government’s attention if, for example, you protest an unjust law. Find a handful of people who agree with you and will protest alongside you, and together you might make the local news. Find a hundred, or a thousand, or a million, and eventually you become impossible to ignore (though you still might not get what you want).

    An interest group is essentially that: an organized group of people that seeks to influence public policy in some way. Its members may not always agree, but they agree enough on one issue or set of issues to band together. Interest group membership is generally not exclusive; one person might be a member of multiple interest groups, each pursuing a different agenda.

    The term interest, as it pertains to interest groups, is not synonymous with hobby. Any policy from which you stand to benefit more than from the alternative is considered to be “in your interest.” Politically speaking, your interests are not what fascinates or intrigues you (in the sense that you find them “interesting”) but rather what things would be good for you if they existed or happened.

    Interest groups are akin to parties, which also act collectively to influence public policy. The main difference between an interest group and a party is how they pursue their goals. Parties strive to win elections and obtain government offices from which they can enact policies, whereas interest groups attempt to persuade government officials to act in certain ways. Parties want to put their members in government; interest groups want to influence government from the outside.


    8.2: Strength in Numbers is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.