Interest groups are particular groups of individuals, which lobby for a specific interest in advancing their own field or discipline. In essence, these groups can be categorized as advocacy groups because they are created with a particular goal. They are advocating only for the betterment of their interest, and sometimes coordinate and form linkages with other institutions to further advance their advocacy. In other jargons, these groups are called pressure groups because of their attempt to influence or manipulate public policy for their own favor.
They do it through lobbying in the congress, and sometimes even to the extent of creating party lists who go into the parliament. Each and every one of the pressure groups shares an ambition to impinge on government policy to do well to themselves or their foundations. It possibly will be a policy that absolutely benefits faction members or one sector of society or a policy that progress a broader communal reason. Interest groups are an ordinary consequence of the communities of welfare. The sector that is advanced by interest groups can be farmers for land tenure or industrialization.
On the other hand, the wider society can be advanced by interest through the need of better air quality. Furthermore, the theory on political systems includes the essential role public interest groups do in influencing polity and the economy. In addition, public interest groups influence even the heads of the states. In the changes on 20th century politics, the presidency is affected by interest groups in the manner that if the president does not support a certain advocacy, he will be threatened not to get any support.
In the recently concluded Philippine elections, the interest groups advancing the Reproductive Health Bill greatly dictate the choice of the people. The candidates for the presidency have been widely scrutinized based on their views about reproductive health. In the end, the candidate who impressed the sector advocating the Reproductive Health Bill, including the church, emerged victorious. Other than the propaganda work performed by interest groups, they also play an important role in political elections because of their influence on the civil society.
The public opinion expressed by public interest groups dictate the characteristics of the political candidates and those who conform accordingly get the most support from these groups, which is, in fact, one of the glorious features of plurality and democracy. If the choices made turned out wrong, there is always the opportunity to rectify it by voting again in the next election and listening to other advocacies by public interest groups.
In terms of the economy, economic interest groups are omnipresent and the most well-known in every country. There are accurately several of them with bureaus in state capitals from Manila to Lima to Bandar Seri Begawan to the United States of America. There are more than a few diverse types of economic interests: “business groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the Confederation of British Industry, and the Nestle Corporation (Brittanica Encyclopedia, 2010).
” Interest groups cannot do away with the society.
Whatever their advocacies are, even how politicized it may seem, the masses is the primary stakeholder. They are under the cycle controlled by the political economic sphere. The dynamism of politics includes public interest groups in it. REFERENCES Contreras, A. P. (2002).
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