López 1

AP Government and Politics

0Discussion Questions – Interest Groups

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10. Why have interest groups grown stronger as the parties have grown weaker? Could this
inverse relationship be changed, with both interest groups and parties growing more
powerful? Or are there incentives for these organizations to compete? Could interest groups
and political parties both grow progressively weaker?
In my opinion, interest groups have grown stronger due to the rising power that they have
when lobbying government. The main reason that these have acquired so much say is due
to parties dwindling and becoming weaker, and weaker. These groups effectively
represent factions of the population that may otherwise lack proper representation from
political parties. However, this inverse relationship could change if both interest groups
and parties were to grow more powerful. Often, public opinion is deemed proper, yet, it is
merely representative samples that often do a mediocre job. Public opinions are difficult
to represent, since there is not one, but many “‘publics’” in the United States. Both
Interest groups and political parties could grow progressively weaker since the “ability of
the family to inculcate a strong sense of party identification” has declined progressively
since the 1950’s and “[b]ecause our attitudes are often unstable or uninformed.”
Therefore, the more people have to choose sides, the more prone they would be to choose
and alternate side, like and interest group, or no side at all rendering both parties and
interest groups desolated and ineffective.

40. Which incentive—material, purposive, solidary—is routinely most important in your

decisions to join an interest group? Why? Does this lead you to pay greater attention to the
group’s external political strategy or to its internal recruitment strategy?

The incentive that would routinely be most important in my decision to join an interest
group would be material. Many interest groups grow and retain ‘power’ because they
offer such incentives that attract people to form part of their coalition. These incentives
are not silly ones, like an inadequately manufactured mp3 player, but “low-cost
insurance” or “discount farm supplies” that are essentials to running a business or
supporting yourself. When “45 percent of the nation’s population in fifty and older” it is
imperative that affordable insurance and “mail-order discount drugs” are low priced and
readily available. Soon enough all Americans will reach this age, and if it were me, this
material incentive would seem awfully attractive when I am a limited-income senior
citizen.
This would usually lead me to pay greater attention ot the group’s internal political
strategy because it is the one that would affect me more directly and most rapidly. Of
course, it is relevant to consider their external political strategy since it could, on the long
run, affect me.