Pressure Group Activity Research Articles

Information, Participation and Pensions: Strategy‐ and Employee‐Related Issues

For most people, pensions as an issue has been mainly associated with retired people as a separate and deserving category of the population, intermittently attended to by government as a result of pressure group activity. Over the last few years, however, occupational pensions have attracted far more attention, and not only from those nearing the end of their economically active life. In the first place, the recurrent imposition of incomes policies has led negotiators to look more closely at benefits which do not fall under the standard pay heading. Some benefits—for example, increased holiday entitlements—are non‐monetary in character and take the form of a substitute for the extra cash which might otherwise have been available. Pensions, on the other hand, represent an area of potential improvement in financial terms, even if in deferred form. More generally, pensions are starting to be seen in the industrial relations world as a standard negotiable item—as part of the “total remuneration package”, to use a currently fashionable term.

Pressure Groups and Policy Formation in the European Communities

The author considers the role of pressure groups within the established decisionmaking framework of the European Communities and the internal pressures to which European pressure groups are subjected. Two case studies are then examined: the agreement of the 1977 directive harmonising banking laws which was achieved only after making great concessions to the banking lobby, especially in Britain; and the organisation of the European Regional Development Fund where initial pressure group interest has been stilled by the insistence of national governments on controlling the Fund’s day-to-day administration but over which the European Parliament has exercised some decisive influence. The author concludes that pressure group activity in E.C. policy formation largely reflects the extent to which Brussels rather than national governments is in control of policy and administration on any subject, and that there are more opportunities for significant pressure group influence on policy development than adherents to the ‘intergovernmentalist’ model of the E.C. suggest.

An Exercise in Influencing Child Abuse Policies and Programs in Victoria

In this article it is intended to describe the activities of a pressure group which was formed with the explicit objective of influencing the course of events in Victoria in relation to the development of child abuse policies and programmes. In the course of this it will be necessary to present something of the recent history of these developments, the place of such policies in the wider policies relating to child welfare, the reasons why it was thought necessary to establish a pressure group and the directions of the pressurising activity. It is also argued that pressure group activity is a necessary and legitimate part of social work activity and can be undertaken whilst recognising the limitations of such an approach in a liberal-welfare, or to give it a shorter name — a conservative economy. This part of the article will be dealt with first.

Du Pont falls out with its would‐be neighbours

Plans by Du Pont, the chemical multinational, to build offices and a laboratory in Stevenage New Town have run up against opposition by residents. The protest strikes a sour note in Du Pont's stated intention to be ‘good neighbours’ and illustrates how industry can unwittingly become a target for pressure group activities. Report by John Bingham.

Making the Millennium: the Mid-Nineteenth Century Peace Movement

On 22 August 1849 a privately sponsored peace congress opened in the Salle de Sainte Cécile in Paris. In the chair was Victor Hugo, assisted as vice presidents and secretaries by a team of men from Britain, the United States, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Several of these men, such as Richard Cobden, were members of the legislatures of their respective countries: others were prominent clergymen and philanthropists. Seated before them were delegates from a slightly wider range of countries which in that blissfully Eurocentric era were deemed to represent the world. They had been brought together by an invitation sent by the London-based Peace Congress Committee to well-known individual sympathizers, peace societies, religious bodies, philanthropic and other civic groups. The business before them consisted of a series of propositions advocating international arbitration, general and simultaneous disarmament, a congress of nations, an international court, and various measures designed to facilitate international communication. This peace congress was the second in a series of four convened between 1848 and 1851 in Brussels, Paris, Frankfort and London to co-ordinate and develop various pressure-group activities which had gained momentum during the late 1840s in Britain and the United States.

Lobbying, Administrative Reform and Policy Styles. The Case of Land Drainage

In this article we analyse the successful attempt by a group of interests concerned with water reorganization during the early 1970s to prevent a radical change in administrative arrangements concerning land drainage. Despite the apparently esoteric nature of the policy area, the ‘politics of land drainage’ was fundamentally concerned with the important matter of what has been called ‘the business concept’ of government. The case study also provides a useful insight into the way in which established interests may have succeeded in ‘colonizing’ certain central government departments. This suggests that a model of pressure group activity depicting pressure on the centre may be misleading for certain areas of policy. We also suggest that the evidence provided by a study of the politics of water reorganization sheds some light on contrasting departmental styles of policy-making.

Amenity and Equity: A Review of Local Environmental Pressure Groups in Britain

The paper discusses the effect, on the distribution of environmental quality and access to facilities, of the growth in Britain of political activity and influence of locality-based, area-oriented groups—the amenity, civic and preservation societies, residents' and tenants' associations, and community action groups—referred to as local environmental pressure groups. After reviewing the growth of organized interest in local environmental issues, one prominent type of local group, amenity societies, is considered in detail, including typical styles of action, resources, ethos, and social composition. It is suggested that the evident effectiveness of many amenity societies may preclude other environmental groups with different social compositions from influencing official planning policies. With growing emphasis on public participation in statutory planning, serious problems of the equity of distribution of amenity and accessibility arise because certain areas and sections of society are not organized to protect their interests in the environment; certain sections of the community lack the available resources to sustain effective pressure group activity; and some local political cultures are unreceptive to group activity. The problems of political equity, the representativeness of local environmental groups, variations in potential political efficacy between existing groups, and the failure of certain interests to achieve political expression are each considered in detail. It is concluded that the medium of political organization will magnify the differences and inequalities of the social structure, and that the activities of local environmental pressure groups will tend to accentuate existing disparities between the favoured environments of the powerful and wealthy and the degraded environments of the deprived.

The Nursing Profession as a Pressure Group

Within democratic political systems the activities of organized groups, striving to influence government decisions on matters affecting their particular interests, are widely recognized as a significant element in the political process. Members of the nursing profession in Queensland have sought to obtain concessions from governments. The tactics used and the degree of success achieved by nurses, when acting as a pressure group, are described.The organization which represents the interests of Queensland nurses is the state branch of the Royal Australian Nursing Federation (RANF). Until the 1960s the organization did not utilize pressure group activities to any great extent, being satisfied to accept the status quo in matters of nurse training and registration. In the 1960s the RANF decided to take the initiative in seeking changes in the relevant legislation. Initially, the campaign mounted by the organization to achieve its objectives revealed a lack of acceptance by the association of the full implications of pressure group tactics. In the later 1960s when there was more awareness of the fact that the organization was acting as a pressure group, greater success was achieved.

Sex‐Education in France: a Case‐study in Curriculum Change

Some of the most visible controversies in recent French politics have centred on various aspects of sexual behaviour. It has become increasingly clear that legislation has lagged behind practice and belief. The liberalization of contraception and abortion, for example, has attracted much support, not infrequently translated into pressure-group activity of a demonstrative and publicityseeking character, which has in turn provoked noisy opposition. These explosive issues have inevitably become entangled with party politics, so that many commentators on the first months of President Giscard d'Estaing's term of office used them as touchstones for discerning the particular mix of conservatism and liberalism in his ambiguous political personality. In this atmosphere it is not surprising that the introduction of sex education into the school curriculum has had reverberations far beyond more curricular reform. Indeed, the changes of 1973/4 constitute a fascinating case-study both of the dynamics of curricular change in a centralized system and of the impact of external social pressures on schools. Until 1974 the position on sex education in French schools was, in principle at least, clear: there was none. That is to say, the syllabuses laid down centrally by the Ministry of National Education for all French schools (including Catholic schools) made no formal provision for the study of human sexuality or for discussion of the various moral and social issues raised by it. This silence on matters of controversy is the expression of an attitude very deep-rooted in French education, and formally expressed under the general heading of larcitd, or secularism. Secularists hold that the national school exists for the purpose of transmitting a culture which is universally valued and for uniting a community whose tendencies to diversity and fissiparity are well known. The state ought not to take cognizance of institutions or views which do not form part of a deeprooted but somewhat ill-defined national consensus. Of course, historically these views have been elaborated in response to a series of bitter conflicts between a republican state and a church which tended to take up an anti-republican position, so that secularism in its more full-blooded forms has tended to be equated with the political Left. The formula of 1905, when church and state were legally separated, required both secularists and Catholics to behave as though the other camp were a distasteful temporary aberration. It was thus inherently unstable, and the history of French education since that date may be viewed as the gradual return of the Catholic school to the national fold-a process greatly accelerated since the early days of the Fifth Republic. In

Consumerism and Japan's New Citizen Politics

IN FEBRUARY 1973, two major Japanese firms announced abandonment of nearly completed plans to begin production of petroleum protein, one of science's new miracle resources. This was a project in which more than ten years of research and billions of yen had already been invested, and which had received the enthusiastic backing of both the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry as a venture of incalculable growth potential given current expectations of a coming world food crisis.' Why then was the project suddenly dropped? The reason given by the companies was strictly political, not economic. They had as yet failed to obtain the understanding of the Japanese public, and felt that they must postpone their production plans until a greater public acceptance of the project was forthcoming. The public indicated in this case was a group of Tokyo housewives who were protesting manufacture of the substance on the grounds that its safety was not yet adequately proven. The housewives had already filed legal complaints with the Welfare Ministry attempting to block company plans, and were planning, along with other consumer groups, to mount a vigorous publicity campaign directed against the companies should they proceed with production. In fact, however, the companies caved in, deciding to divert their energies to other projects, at least until the current furor died down. The companies' retreat in the face of the housewives' opposition was just one in a succession of incidents which have marked the emergence of consumerism and the consumer movement as a new element on the Japanese political scene, one which well mirrors the current mood of self-assertiveness on the part of the Japanese public, and which possesses the potential of opening up a new role for women in Japanese politics. Although consumerism has recently acquired a new popularity in many highly industrialized nations, the upsurge of interest in consumerism in Japan has taken place in a social and political atmosphere substantially different from that of other nations. Despite the party and pressure group activities which have flourished

British Pressure Group Politics: The National Council for Civil Liberties

This paper seeks to draw attention to a need to account for forms of pressure group activity which have become increasingly prominent in British politics. The focus is on groups that articulate demands of the disadvantaged or aggrieved in British society. This requires a pressure group framework, as well as the approaches used in studies of community action and political participation; it is argued that the literature on British pressure groups is inadequate in this respect. A typology is proposed to promote visibility in terms of relations with government. Groups can be seen to inhabit three worlds rather than one. The National Council for Civil Liberties is representative of third world pressure groups. It shares many characteristics and confronts similar problems, while possessing features which are peculiar to a group dedicated to the preservation and extension of civil liberties. The National Council for Civil Liberties has achieved effectiveness without acceptance.

New Perspectives on British Local Government

It is both humbling and encouraging to recall notions that Americans once entertained of the British political system. Critics of F.D.R. looked enviously at the British Parliament for its reputed ability to hold the executive firmly accountable for its actions. Somewhat later, observers on both sides of the Atlantic supposed that Britain was blessed with an absence of pressure groups. Would-be reformers of the American party system further implied that British voters cast their ballots according to the content of party programs, and that party cohesion was the result of discipline imposed by a centralized party organization able to deny renomination to recalcitrant M.P.'s. Careful analyses of intra-party workings, pressure-group activity, and voting behavior have now dispelled these and other mistaken impressions, and it seems likely that the contours of our understanding of these subjects have now been established. However, additional frontiers of knowledge of the British political system remain to be charted; one of these is government at the local level.

Victorian Pressure Groups: Directions for Research

In recent years there has been considerable interest in Victorian politics and the Victorian political system. This has provided a substantial and continuing literature, much of which, however, remains preoccupied with leadership and organization at a parliamentary level. It may, therefore, be valuable to suggest an area within this most traditional of fields which might provide an alternative approach to that of “high politics”—of cabinet intrigue and parliamentary speech-making. In fact, one might ignore, for the moment, Parliament altogether, and consider that side of Victorian political activity which has been largely obscured by Hatfield dinner parties and Highbury foxing. That is, the manner in which Englishmen from outside Westminster, and perhaps from outside the formal institutions of party and government, attempted to determine the substance of issues and solutions debated in Parliament and at Whitehall.One should avoid confusing the visible and symbolic place Parliament has occupied with the reality of political initiative. In England the rapid growth of new economies and the cities they created in the North and Midlands at the beginning of the Victorian age detracted from the centralness of London and Westminster, blurring somewhat the focus of English economic and political life, and creating new urban hierarchies consciously opposed to domination from Whitehall. Within the vast new urban centers, fed by a rural migration and accellerated by the spreading railway system, voluntary associations of all sorts became a peculiarly Victorian characteristic—serving perhaps as surrogates for a sense of community lost in the passage from a rural to an urban environment. Reading and corresponding societies, social clubs, self-help and benevolent associations, charities—this kind of activity penetrated Victorian society from the respectable working classes to the very rich. Related to this social phenomenon was a growth in local and national political associations—what one might today call “cause lobbies.” It is this type of pressure group activity, predominantly urban and probably largely middle-class, which needs to be more systematically studied. This essay will attempt to indicate the value of such research into “low politics,” and to suggest some avenues of approach.

A Profile of Legislator Perceptions of Interest Group Behavior Relating To Legislative Issues in the States

T THIS JUNCTURE of inquiry into the nature of policy-making in the SUnited States, no one needs to be cautioned about the significance of interest group representatives in the formulation of public policy. To simply recognize their significance and perhaps a few assorted manifestations of their behavior, leaves us, of course, a long way from bringing their impact into sharp descriptive focus. The problem is complicated by the fact that interest groups and their representatives in the fifty states spring up in response to great diversities of economy, geography, and social stratification. Literally thousands of interest group leaders descend upon the state capitols in a host of particularistic ways and on a great variety of issues, making it extremely difficult to bring together, bit by bit, even the bare outlines of their impact?. Clearly the alternatives for gaining perspective on this subject matter are numerous. One way to proceed is to petition information from those who receive and observe pressure group communication and who ultimately have some control over its consequences that is, either legislators or administrators. In this study, as it happens, the amorphous pressure group environment is organized through the perceptions of legislators, 838 of whom offered their comments in a 1963 fifty-state survey.2 By necessity, the results of the study are limited to those pressure group activities that are visible to legislators. The foremost concern of this paper will be to convey the extent to which pressure groups are active over different types of legislative policy-making. Underlying this concern is the assumption that variations in the substance of issues and legislation will be characterized by correspondingly different sub-systems of actors. Pressure group representatives will have a varying role, depending upon the substantive nature of policy questions. In some areas of policy their actions will be of minimal consequence, while in other areas they will be an integral part of the decision-making process. Elaboration of this theme will be accomplished in four steps: (1) a classification of powerful pressure groups; (2) an examination of pressure group activity and conflict over important issues; (3) an examination of

Australiana

Australiana

III. Tories, Catholics, and the General Election of 1859

The fine and delicate balance of political forces and interests in midnineteenth century Britain is nowhere better demonstrated than in the activities of certain social and religious pressure groups during the general election campaign of 1859. The two main parties were certainly conscious of their past and of the traditions imposed upon them by those who had gone before; equally certainly the differences between them were more the outcome of these traditions than of real contemporary disagreements as to policy or outlook. The Tory administration led by Lord Derby, which had come to power in February 1858, was in a minority in the House of Commons. Its survival depended on an ability to attract dissident Whigs and men of independent views. Derby, never the most optimistic of men, had realized as early as April 1857 that his party, ‘if not an actual corpse’, was at most ‘in a state of suspended animation’.1 By the beginning of 1859 it had become evident to a number of Tory leaders, and particularly to Disraeli, that if the government were to survive, it would be necessary to obtain help from quarters hitherto untapped by the party. A peculiar set of circumstances led Disraeli to look to sections of the Roman Catholic community for such support. Although Catholicism was a growing force in England, the centre of its political operations lay of course in Ireland, which then returned 105 members to Westminster.

Business and Government: A Typology of Pressure Group Activity

Business and Government: A Typology of Pressure Group Activity

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:COMPARING NATIONS: The Use of Quantitative Data in Cross‐National Research. Edited byTHE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. By Olson jr. Cambridge, MassachusettsSTUDIES IN HISTORIOGRAPHY. By A. D. MomiglianoGOEBBELS AND NATIONAL SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA 1925–1948. By Ernest K. BramstedTHE POLITICS OF NAVAL SUPREMACY: Studies in British Maritime SupremacyTHE NORMAN CONQUEST: its Setting and Impact. By Dorothy Whitelock, David C. Douglas, Charles H. Lemmon and Frank BarlowTHE JUSTICIARSHIP IN ENGLAND, 1066–1232. By Francis WestTHE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics. By Michael WalzerINTELLECTUALS IN POLITICS: John Stuart Mill and the Philosophic Radicals. By Joseph HamburgerA HISTORY O F SOUTHERN RHODESIA: Early Days To 1934. By L. H. GannCHINA AND THE BOMB. By Morton H. Halperin LondonPOLITICAL PARTIES IN NEW ZEALAND. By R. S. MilneECONOMIC ENQUIRY IN AUSTRALIA. By Craufurd D. W. Goodwin. Durham, N.C., DukeAUSTRALIAN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. By L. I?. CrispHIERARCHY AND DEMOCRACY IN AUSTRALIA 1788–1870: The Formation of Australian Catholicism. By T. L. SuttorTHOMAS PEEL OF SWAN RIVER. By Alexandra HasluckAUSTRALIAN CITIZEN: Herbert Brookes 1867–1963. By Rohan RivettSIR JOHN LATHAM AND OTHER PAPERS. By Zelman Cowen. MelbourneTHE POLITICS OF PATRIOTISM: The Pressure Group Activities of the Returned Servicemenćs League. By G. L. Kristianson

Activities of Precinct Committeemen in Partisan and Nonpartisan Communities

HE RELATIONSHIP and possible consequences of nonpartisan or partisan election rules to political party activity and organization is the subject of this paper. Precinct committeemen in two different political systems were studied. In one system the precinct committeemen work within a set of rules that maintain partisan elections of local officials and a large volume of local patronage. In the second community the precinct committeemen work under a city-manager plan, nonpartisan election rules,' and no local patronage. A direct examination of the differences between the activities of precinct workers in different political systems may contribute to a fuller understanding of the effect of imposing nonpartisan electoral rules on urban political organizations. Two of the formal and intended consequences of nonpartisanship are the elimination of the task of electing local public officials and the removal of patronage and other rewards from the control of the local political parties. Previous discussion of the possible effects of these two changes on local party systems has focused more on the effects on voting behavior and pressure group activity than on the direct effects on the precinct workers and organization of the parties themselves.2 (Party officials in Nonpartisan County were shocked at the suggestion that they possibly supported nonpartisan officials.) Despite the caution with which social scientists have discussed their research findings they generally conclude that the effect of nonpartisanship on local political party organization is one of weakening the local party organization and decreasing the party activity of the precinct workers. Underlying this assumption is the notion

School Desegregation and Action Programs in Intergroup Relations

BEFORE commenting on specific examples of research within the compass of this chapter, it may be well to summarize the consequences of certain dramatic events of the last six years. 1. The federal government has rapidly moved toward desegregation and greater protection of civil rights. It has banned segregation in public federal facilities, prohibited use of government funds in construction of segregated facilities, abolished segregation in the Armed Forces, established a Civil Rights Commission in the Department of Justice, and prohibited employment discrimination in industries receiving government contracts. Sixteen states have fair employment practices laws with commissions to supervise their enforcement. Most of them also have additional civil rights laws covering discrimination in public accommodations, education, and in some instances housing purchase and rental. Over 40 major communities of America have comparable ordinances. Approximately one-third of the population of the country is now covered by such laws (2). 2. Court decisions have restructured relations between racial groups. The Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954, reversed the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which had expounded the philosophy of separate but equal as legally defensible. 3. Religious conflict has increased in America as the Roman Catholic and Jewish groups have acquired new status with which to assert respect for their differences in community life. 4. Local social action and pressure-group activity outside the bounds of the structure listed above has been negligible since the hysteria of McCarthyism. Hence, little evaluation of social-action research has taken place since 1953 because of the decline of this approach to community programs.