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pressure group Essay

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INTRODUCTION
Pressure group is defined as a non-profit and usually voluntary organization whose member have a common cause for which they seek to influence political or corporate decision makers to achieve a declared objective but not to elected candidates to office. They can also be described as ‘interest groups’, ‘lobby groups’ or ‘protest groups’. The aim of all pressure groups is to influence the people who actually have the power to make decisions. Pressure groups do not look for the power of political office but seek influence the decisions made by those who hold the political power such as cabinet. They are sometimes able to gather sufficient support to force government to amend or even scrap legislation. Pressure group direct …show more content…

Political parties and pressure groups are dependent upon one another. Interest groups find the parties an important method of gaining access to those in public authority, and the parties need the support of groups to elect and maintain themselves in power. The loose party structure and the nature of the federal system foster a chain of continuous relationships between the two. Interest groups participate in both nonpartisan and partisan primaries and general elections through candidate endorsement, providing campaign funds, and general campaign activity. Interest groups are particularly interested in programs and seek to influence party platforms and may provide speech materials for candidates. There is some attempt on the part of both to infiltrate each other though rarely has an interest group been able to capture complete control of a party organization. The overlapping memberships help to educate the parties about the interests of the private groups and vice versa, and provide some cross-fertilization of ideas as well as manpower assistance. Political parties have a prime function of accommodating the demands of the private interests into the larger public interests (Bone. A, 1958).
Pressure Groups are distinct from political parties in the sense that they do not seek political posts and they do not contest elections. But one important element that makes them what they are is the

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