Interest groups can influence public policy

Scientists will often release research studies with the hopes that politicians will take these findings into account when they develop policy. The medical community, and especially doctors, have a high credibility with the public and will some times write letters to politicians signed by hundreds of health care professionals - again, in an attempt to move politicians towards their views. How do interest groups influence public policy?

Don Mac. Jun 10, Explanation: Interest groups use a number of strategies to influence government policy to favour their beliefs and goals. It was true in the past and remains true today. Ministers talk of the need for new homes, appealing to the young voters who might become home-owners, but must contend with the fact that large numbers of new houses will depress the price of the existing stock, adversely affecting current home-owners. Since for most people their home is their most substantial item of saving or investment, their interest lies in rising values not in falling ones.

Current home-owners know who they are; future ones generally do not. The technique of compensating an interest group with something of greater value has been used many times.

British Airways, when it was state-owned, needed to slim from 59, to 39, employees before it could operate efficiently and profitably as a private company. None was threatened with dismissal. Cash sums were offered instead to those prepared to leave voluntarily, and the sums were set high enough to encourage enough of them to do so. Some used the money to achieve long-held desires to set up in business. Again, from the BA point of view it was a capital cost, paying money up front in order to buy more efficient operation in future.

The voluntary and non-confrontational aspect of this approach has led to it becoming almost routine. The approach is popular because the interest group is assuaged by this approach and does not cause trouble or embarrassment to the local authority or the business concerned. The offer to an interest group to compensate them for loss of advantage need not be monetary. People might be prepared to accept greater opportunities for advancement in return for lower job security.

It is often the case that the private sector does not provide the same level of job security as its public sector counterpart, but might provide easier opportunities for promotion. Some people will accept greater independence and flexibility as compensation for a forgone advantage, valuing the chance to exercise more initiative and take more control over the circumstances of their employment.

The essential point is to adapt the policy initiative to incorporate some compensatory advantage, monetary or otherwise, to offer to an affected interest group, preferably at a level sufficient to soften their opposition. The effect of all this is often to make the proposed initiative rather messy, with all kinds of ad hoc clauses included to placate interest groups that might otherwise thwart its passage. This is true, but a messy proposal that succeeds is better than a clean one that fails to be implemented.

Sometimes the concessions to interest groups will lower the value of what is being achieved. Again, this is true, and again it is to be preferred to no achievement at all. There can even be an issue of fairness, with critics saying that the advantages enjoyed by interest groups were unjust, and should not be compensated for.

The response to this might be that the compensatory offer is preferable to the continuation of that unjust advantage. When state-owned houses were offered to their tenants, some middle class home-owning Conservatives objected. Their case was that they had bought their houses the hard way, while the state tenants had for years paid below-market rents, made possible by the taxes paid by home-owners.

Now the government was offering those tenants a chance to buy at a price below what their house was worth, and they thought this unfair. The answer at the time was that the sale of council houses would end the continuing annual subsidy to support their rent, and that this one-off concession would reduce the demands made on taxpayers in the future. It undoubtedly entered the thinking of the government of the day that if state tenants became home-owners, they would no longer have an interest in voting for candidates who supported cheap rents, but might now have an interest in voting for candidates whose outlook seemed more favourable to home-owners.

Interest groups founded upon a shared ideology are often more difficult to compensate, since their interest might not be based on any personal advantage, but on a shared view of how society should operate or be constructed.

Teachers unions have opposed giving choices to parents or operating independence to schools because they are committed to a view of education in which children are allocated to school based on what are seen as the needs of the community, and in which schools are required to operate in like manner to each other. For similar reasons the unions tend to oppose measures that devolve powers away from local education authorities down to individual schools.

There is probably no compensation that could be offered which would wean them away from that position. There is the possibility, however, that even where an interest group cannot be placated by the offer of alternative or compensating advantages, it might be possible to call into being an interest group that could outweigh them. In the case of the state houses, most local authorities were totally opposed to the initiative which reduced their housing stock and their ability to allocate it.

The first comprises parents who think their children might benefit if they had free choice between schools. The second group is constituted from among the headteachers. Many of them welcome the extra authority which comes with operating independence for their schools.

Many relish the chance to make and implement real decisions about how the school should be run, instead of being ciphers for a central authority which sends out detailed guidelines for them to follow.

Thus the combination of school choice and operational independence for schools, while it cannot placate one interest group whose ideology sets it in opposition, can nonetheless conjure up two new groups to outweigh its influence.

A policy initiative, if it is to succeed, might therefore first consider how to win over any interest groups who might otherwise stand to lose out from its introduction, and secondly how to create new interest groups to counter-balance those who cannot be won over. It was in this spirit that the Adam Smith Institute set out to solve the problems of a housing shortage without alienating existing home-owners whose amenity and value might be adversely affected, while securing the acquiescence of many of the environmental lobbies which have hitherto opposed more building.

The proposal began with an overview of existing land use in Britain. Some 90 percent of us live in urban areas, and we occupy 8. The popular vision of a green and pleasant countryside does not always accord with the reality.

Much land, including land in the green belts, is used for intensive farming, with large monoculture fields of crops much as wheat or rapeseed. UK farms have a very high level of productivity, backed up by intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides.

They do not provide a diverse habitat for wildlife, and are not particularly environmentally friendly. The land would be converted in the following ratio: 90 percent would be given over to new woods and forests. Thus a total of 0. The remaining 2. The principal change would see tree cover increase by , hectares, an increase of 11 percent. The proposal is for the creation of diverse woodland, including small streams and lakes, providing a habitat for animal, birds and insects, and considerably friendlier to the environment that much of the agriculture it would replace.

The remaining tenth of the 3 percent of farmland converted would allow , homes to be built, together with supporting infrastructure. Interest groups which seek a vibrant rural economy with jobs available for young people there should welcome this. It not advisable to use direct sunlight as light source of the microscope. Which of the following best explains this?

Why can Friendship can often like a burden Consider the following dictionary Marks and answer the questions from i to iv. Shoba wan What is the area of the trapezoid Create notes for the following passage If you are looking to improve your heart health, each day is about making a choice that moves you in the right Gathering Evidence About Velocity Changes Can somebody plz answer this quick question?

What is solar power? And how does it work? Write a rule for the nth term of the arithmetic sequence. Please include steps, I'm having a very difficult time understanding! Explain the different types of social groups, their characteristics and functions using examples More questions: History Another questions.

Questions on the website: See results 0 The answer is not found? Log in Forgot your password? Join now Forgot your password? You are registered. Access to your account will be opened after verification and publication of the question. Ok Close. Add photo Send. Question sent to expert. You will receive an answer to the email. No commitments. However, we generally characterize such interest groups as those with specific public policy agendas that they try to advance with the legislative and executive branches of government.

They are generally those with vested interests, who are politically active in the lawmaking process. What makes interest groups effective? The keys are often being politically powerful and socially popular.

For example, teachers, labor unions, and public safety groups enjoy public support, in general.