8.6: Interest Groups and Collective Action

Interest groups, like governments, form for the purpose of solving collective action problems. Interest groups that pools their resources and efforts can enact, maintain, or repeal policies that matter to them. A single college student has little power over education policy, for example, but millions of college students working together might produce significant change.

To organize effectively, interest groups, must act collectively. They may represent a large segment of the population, but they can only leverage that size if enough contribute time, money, and other resources to a cause. Each individual member, however, has an incentive to free-ride. If a coalition of college students succeeds in pressuring government to pass laws that lower the cost of tuition, all college students benefit, including those who contributed nothing to the group’s success.

Governments solve collective action problems primarily through coercion: forcing citizens—at gunpoint if necessary—to contribute rather than free-ride. Interest groups generally lack this ability to coerce their members and must therefore use other tactics. One option is a selective incentive for members who contribute. AARP provides health insurance and other benefits to its paying members, just as the American Automobile Association (AAA) encourages its members to contribute in exchange for roadside assistance and exclusive discounts. These private goods are limited to people who pay their dues to the groups. Those dues can then be used to fund the groups’ mission.

Material benefits like insurance and discounts are not the only upsides to contributing to interest groups. For some members, the opportunity to work in solidarity with other like-minded people for a noble goal is enough of an incentive to participate. Such members, however, are limited in number, and there are usually too few for an interest group to rely on them alone for its effectiveness. This is why so many groups offer material benefits, and why those that don’t or can’t often struggle to influence policy.