POLS 220
Berch
Spring 2014
Interest Groups
Review: Two Major Ways For Citizens to Influence
Government
A.
Elections
B.
Interest Groups
C.
US emphasizes interest groups; weak parties.
D.
Within US, party strength and competition
influence interest group importance
Interest
Groups
A.
Where
there’s an interest, there may or may not be an interest group
1.
Demonstrate free rider
2.
Implication:
not all groups form; there’s a class bias—free rider has major effect
3.
Contradicts pluralist theory
B.
So, level
of interest group strength is unimportant unless we know which groups are
strong
C.
Banking, insurance, and legal interest groups
tend to exert quiet power
Parties and Elections
Decline of
Parties
A.
Campaign
styles—labor intensive vs. capital intensive
B.
Open primaries (two senses)
1.
Open vs.
smoke-filled rooms
2.
Closed vs. open vs. blanket (Supreme Court
intervenes)
C.
Patronage
reduced in importance (most places)
D.
Welfare function reduced in importance
E.
Non-partisan local elections
1.
Maybe
not—Seattle story
2.
Not much of a factor in the Northeast
What about
third parties?
A.
Problems
1.
Money
2.
Publicity
3.
Single-member plurality
4.
Election laws and administration
B.
BUT: 1990 may have changed things
1.
Hickel
2.
Sanders (and reelected)
3.
Weicker
4.
Can they govern?
C.
1994 was
a good year, too
1.
Sanders
reelected again
2.
Connecticut and Alaska parties put up good
efforts
3.
Independent governor elected in Maine
4.
Third parties and independents had major effects
in NM (Greens), OK (Gov. race), UT (Cong), NY (Gov)
5.
1996—scattered victories in local elections
6.
1998—another good year (THE MIND, and King
reelected)
7.
2000—some local successes, but lesser evil
problem arises, too.
8.
2002—third parties held their own
9.
2004—less impact (due to 2000)
10.
2006—interesting twist (Lieberman)
11.
2008—not a big year for third parties
12.
2010—Rhode Island win, other close calls
13.
2012—King is back!
14.
2014—too early to tell, but Chafee isn’t running
for reelection
