THE ROLE OF SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Like political parties, pressure groups can be considered another system that connects the citizen more directly to government. However, at the same instant there are marked differences in both composition and function that define interest groups as different entities from larger political parties. According to V.O. Key Jr. in a composition appropriately entitled Pressure Groups; pressure groups "Ordinarily… concern themselves with only a narrow range of policies;" and unlike the goals of political parties, their intentions are to "influence the content of public policy rather than the results of elections." Nevertheless, it is a realized fact that special interest groups with
The real result of such frenzies for publicity almost justifies and accounts for the willingness of special interest groups to campaign in morally corrupt ways. "The data makes it fairly clear that most of these campaigns do not affect the opinion of many people and even clearer that they have small effect by way of punitive or approbative feedback in the vote." The fact that organizations engage in these practices, "is in itself a tribute to the importance of public opinion." Previously discussed were some of the dark deeds that some special interest groups commit, and the Keysian hypothesis that group organizations have an intrinsically stunted ability to effectively link their constituents with the government. Walter Isaacson's essay, Running with the PACs, describes the changes that have occurred in special-interest representation since the 1970s. According to Isaacson, "there is nothing inherently evil about PACs…they are merely established