The Role of Pressure Groups in British Legislative Politics, 1945-1989

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between pressure groups and British executive- legislative institutions during a period of increased government interventionism following the Second World War. In spite of a phase of tripartite institutions and practices, during 1961- 1979, the British system of interest representation remained largely pluralistic. Yet it stayed functionally dierent from its US counterpart. I oer an alternative explanation for the markedly dissimilar impacts of special interest groups in the UK parliamentary system and the US presidential system. A simple game theoretic model facilitates a comparative analysis of the political incentives faced by pressure groups in the two systems. I establish that con- centration of proposal power in the executive branch of government together with institutions that foster voting cohesion in the ruling coalition have made the parliamentary UK legislature less responsive to demands for protection from special interests; in a competitive, pluralist, system of interest representation, where organization is costly, fewer interests will organize into pressure groups. These predictions are consistent with survey data from several sources.