what type of national interest is served by political parties ?
Answers
Some Americans identify with groups distinguished by race, gender, ethnic background, age, occupation, or sexual orientation. Others form groups based on issues like gun control or tax reduction. When such associations seek to influence government in some way, they are interest groups. Interest groups are sometimes called “special interests.” Politicians and the media often use this term in a pejorative way. What makes an interest group a “special” one? The answer is highly subjective. One person’s special interest is another’s public interest. Some interest groups claim to speak for the “public interest,” yet so-called public interest groups like Common Cause or the League of Women Voters support policies that not everyone agrees with. Politics is best seen as a clash among interests with differing concepts of what is in the public interest rather than a battle between the special interests on one side and “the people” or the public interest on the other. When political scientists call something an “interest group” or a “special interest,” they are not calling it names. These are analytic terms to describe a group that speaksfor some but not all of us. Much of our politics focuses on arguments about what is in the national interest. In a democracy, there are many interests and many organized interest groups. The democratic process exists to decide among those competing interests.Part of the politics of interest groups is to persuade the general public that your group’s interest is better, broader, more beneficial, and more general than other groups’ and at the same time label groups that oppose yours as “special interests.” The term “special interest” conveys a selfish or narrow view, one that may lack credibility. For this reason, we use the neutral term “interest groups.