Interest Groups in America

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Recommended: The importance of interest groups

Let’s say that you are driving to the Olympia capital for the first time and you see a group of people standing around chanting and holding signs that say “STOP ABORTIONS.” You stop and ask your friend on what she thinks in going on? You both think that it is a protest against abortion, so you start to walk around wondering what is going on. You are told by one of the group members that he is part of an interest group that fights for pro-life. Your friends start to wonder what an interest group is since pro-life if such a big issue to her, she wants to be a part of it too. According to Roskin, Cord, Medeiros and Jones (2010) an interest group is “an association that pressures government for policies it favors.” But are interest groups useful or do they just cause more problems? In this essay I will be explaining the different types of interest groups that there are, how interest groups are created and who are in interest groups, and how they are beneficial and not beneficial to the people who are supporters.

Interest groups have been around since the 1780s. Most of the topics that were focused on during that time were land ownership, debt and slavery (Interest Groups, 2003). “In 1791 the activities of interest groups were formally recognized in the First Amendment to the Constitution, which protected the people's right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances"(Interest Groups, 2003). “The term interest group covers just about any collection of people trying to influence government” (Roskin, el at, 2010).

There are many types of interest groups and issues that are focused on. Types of interest groups may include farmer, doctors, lawyers, teachers and other business members who have issues they are interested i...

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...nize are distributed unevenly (Saurugger, 2010).

Interest groups are extremely important to society. Without people being passionate about issues that affect a lot of people then people would feel like they do not matter. Even though issue groups usually have two sides to them, one interest group vs. an opposing view interest group, people are fighting to what they think is right. Interest groups can bring change or they can bring violence to society depending on the issue at hand. Everyone has a right to their own opinions and interest groups are able to help in an orderly fashion, well most of the time, and be able to speak their mind and possibly change the minds of others in the process. As time goes on I see interest groups becoming more powerful because of the large issues that we face in our everyday living.

Works Cited

Introduction to Political Science

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