The functions that an interest group performs through lobbying politicians have an intrinsic link with the democratic process of a country, and such connection allows these groups to have a direct impact on both policy makers and the general public. Interest groups will, in essence, seek to pressure politicians to provide blanket benefits to their members – such as unions lobbying to raise workers' wages. In this essay, therefore, I will first highlight how letting interest groups lobby is good for democracy in terms of representation, defense of public opinions and guidance for politicians and then I will analyze why it might be bad in terms of minority bias, impasse or poor electoral choices. and analyze the two sides of the question. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Firstly, interest groups play a crucial role in influencing political decisions through the mechanism of lobbying. It allows people within these groups to mediate between the public and those in elected positions, but at the same time, as Ryden argues, “narrow, focus, define the multiplicity of interests into distinguishable political positions that ultimately they shape and guide governance.” This is evident, for example, in the case of America, where the AFL-CIO has a larger membership than any other lobbying organization and effectively lobbies to ensure worker protection and advance legislation to ensure a better minimum wage or social security for workers. The groups therefore perform a proxy function through which they act on behalf of the public and, in doing so, guarantee to provide policy makers and politicians with complete and nuanced signals about citizens' preferences and therefore play a fundamental secondary role as an effective channel of communication of citizens. citizens. sovereignty and control. In this regard, Verba and Nie state that "if democracy is interpreted by the people as a rule, then the more the people participate in decisions, the more democracy there is". Robert Dahl specifically theorizes the notion of pluralism for this case, whereby he argues that politicians arrive at policy decisions on the basis of opposing groups organizing and putting pressure on the strongest, such that the "countervailing power" guides them towards policies that guarantee democratic balance. Dahl's theory provides an accurate representation of cases in which policy makers confront a plurality of interest groups, and groups that hold the strongest coalition and fight for the same policy goal are more likely to be more successful. This case suggests that policies are then created in such a way as to ensure that maximum utility is distributed to people based on their level of desire for the policy. Although Dahl's theory of pluralism is criticized because it considers politicians to be more neutral than they actually are and tends to favor groups with more resources or power, it is still true, as Thies and Porche point out in their study, that under pluralism groups such as agricultural farmers who would not be able to organize themselves effectively because they are not significant enough in power or less organized in the case of developed countries such as the United States, are still able to obtain subsidies from the state because they are able to capture and lobby politicians in their districts who wish to be re-elected. So it is possibleargue that interest groups can capture the intensity of a policy in a fragmented and divided public and carefully guide political parties on which policies can deliver the most to the public. Second, Berry emphasizes the educational role of interest groups and how the public perceives both political problems and proposed solutions to them. This, in essence, will likely create a more informed citizenry that will enable them to make better democratic and electoral choices. Evidence for this is provided by Pierce et al who showed that information provided by environmental groups in both the United States and Canada proved to be the most important incentive for joining them. The information provided by the groups allows people to understand the reality of the status quo within the country such that people can view politicians with some skepticism. However, this would be a sign of a mature democracy since otherwise political parties could gain voters simply by promising unattainable policies, but this method allows people to make accurate decisions during the electoral process. Finally, interest groups can be considered democratically valid because they offer a productive form of representation to people who are not directly involved in political parties. Interest groups are therefore a valid substitute for allowing people to engage in the democratic process when they might lose trust in political parties and thus channel their concerns through this medium and allow the democratic process to continue. In the absence of these groups people may otherwise feel increasingly alienated or disengaged to the point of using more volatile approaches such as rioting. Mair sums up by saying that as far as the UK is concerned people are "increasingly reluctant to engage with parties both in terms of identification and membership" and evidence of this is seen in the way in which over the last 50 years party members have Labor Party fell from 7 million to 200,000. or below. Therefore, the experiences of people within these interest groups are both socially and politically relevant to the democratic process, since fundamentally democracy itself requires people's participation. However, interest group critics argue the opposite. Olson highlights this clearly in Logic of Collective Action, where he argues that collective action benefits smaller groups disproportionately compared to larger ones because they are more capable of organizing themselves, have more specialized and homogeneous interests than larger groups. large ones that have widespread interests and, more importantly, smaller ones. groups can better control free riders to ensure that everyone participates in the group's success. His theory therefore highlights how only a minority, and a powerful minority that has the resources to organize itself better, can benefit and obtain private goods at the expense of majority public interest groups that are unable to access the goods they desire. , such that democracy is undermined by minority rule. Clear evidence of this would be the National Rifle Association in the United States which has repeatedly blocked gun control legislation despite the fact that the majority of Americans actually want stricter gun control laws. Lindblom, in the same regard, argues that businesses enjoy disproportionate influence on the policy-making process. This is perhaps best seen where individual industries holding specialized interests have had an inordinate amount of power sincethey are smaller than the wider business community as a whole which is diffuse and less organized and therefore as some industries can easily have specific activities. tax rulings and/or tax loopholes in their favor, but the business community at large has failed to reduce progressive taxes or social welfare legislation that does not benefit them. While this argument has some credibility, Heike Klüver researches the lobbying activity in the European Union of 2696 interest groups on 56 political issues and suggests how significantly an interest group's success varied depending on its importance. of the issue and policy under consideration, and therefore of the size of the group involved. less of a dominant role as Olson might have emphasized. Furthermore, Richardson and Jordon also argue that governments tend to act with a certain degree of preferential treatment and try to capture certain groups. This idea suggests that the government does not act as “neutral arbiters” as Dahl may have suggested, but rather that there is a certain degree of bureaucratic approach, whereby politicians and policy makers seek to align and pass legislation based on shared general objectives with specific pressure groups. Therefore, governments are seen as "group peacemakers" by Brittan, who suggests that they have a narrow band of clients and that important scarce resources of the nation are redistributed to these clients to secure their support during election campaigns. In Pakistan, this is most clearly evidenced in the case of the military establishment, whereby no government seeking re-election can reasonably ignore or overlook the ideas or policies it wishes to see implemented. While this may be true, sometimes the government's association with certain groups or granting them “privileged” access may only be for the purpose of creating a “level playing field,” as Lindblom proposes in the case of neo-pluralism, for example when the government will provide subsidies to environmental groups that represent a case of widespread public interest. This case of positive discrimination is also supported by Lijphart who refers to the idea of ​​“consociationalism” whereby the state will show favoritism towards certain groups along ethnic and linguistic lines, such as British funding of religious schools. This argument is further supported when Bilal suggests how elected representatives adopt policies that are consistent with the views of their core constituencies and/or prefer policy positions preferred by the average voter and therefore even groups with widespread public interests are likely to succeed if they lobby for policymakers and politicians in their constituencies. In essence, therefore, while some groups gain privileged access into the lobbying process, which may seem contrary to the concept of partial democracy, however, this access can also prove useful for less powerful groups who would otherwise have been blocked. completely out. Finally, critics of lobbying interest groups, particularly He, argue that unbridled public participation can be debilitating to the country's political and administrative system. This notion proposes the idea that forming consensus on public policies and actually passing laws on them becomes a more difficult process with conflicting and conflicting interest groups, so much so that an "impasse" situation is more likely to arise ". This is demonstrated by Euchner in the case of the United States, where a stalemate has been created due to the exponential increase of interest groups who have spent millions of dollars to make’