Political Parties And Interest Groups Essay

In order to explain my understanding of how political parties and interest groups serve as channels for popular participation, and then compare and contrast the techniques they use to do so; I must first explain my understanding of each topic. What I gained from thoroughly reading our class text book is that an interest group is a collection of people who share a common interest or attitude and seek to influence government for specific ends. There are many types of interest groups from nongovernment organizations, economic, private, to public. I also learned that a political party is an organization that seeks political power by electing people to office so that its positions and philosophy become public policy. The main two are Democrats and

It can be argued that media is an interest group in itself, but in this case I will compare and contrast their use of media in influencing the public. With television, internet, and advertising in every home, and pretty much everywhere you look these days it is so easy to be influenced in the direction of the majority. According to our text, interest groups use media in two ways for organization (rallies, marches, mass emails etc.), and forums (social media, blogging, etc.). Their main goal is providing for their people, as mentioned in Ch. 14 of our additional reading. An interest group 's goal is to promote a position on a specific issue such as gun control or agriculture. Interest groups do not necessarily have their members run for office and they vote in a nonpartisan way, supporting candidates who promote their point of

Lobbying involves efforts to make direct, private, face-to-face contact with public officials to explain your position on political and social issues in order to shape policymaking. Our additional reading states that whether you are an officially registered lobbyist or a member of some other type of interest group, lobbying is an important and powerful technique for influencing public policy decisions. Some organizations hire a regular "in-house" lobbyist who works exclusively for their organization as a staff member. Political parties exist to gain power over governmental policy by winning elections for political office. They do this by supporting candidates for offices and helping them win elections through advertising and fundraising. They have official opinions on a wide variety of issues, but these are subject to change. The reading also says that for years certain pundits and political scientist have insisted that money is not all that important in winning elections. They insist that other variables – such as party affiliation, incumbency, and candidate images, key issues- may be the deciding factors. Other variables gather from and substance within a well-financed campaign. A candidate can promote his image in a very favorable light and advertise or buy the issues as best suit him. Money is important and needed in order to win any campaign,