Role of Pressure Groups in Democracy

Pluralists believe that pressure groups advance the idea of democracy. Elitists claim that the pressure groups underline and weaken the democratic process. The pressure groups promote the democracy by:

Supplementing electoral democracy

Pluralists argue that the pressure groups may supplement electoral democracy because they keep the government in touch with public opinion between elections. Elections take place once in five year, but the pressure groups engage the government in an ongoing dialogue with the people. Similarly, the pressure groups give political voice to minority and vulnerable sections of the society. Moreover, pressure groups raise concerns about various social issues such as fundamental rights and liberties, poverty, environment, domestic violence etc.

Participation

The democracy at heart means the government by the people, for the people and of the people. However, a low turn out in elections is not a good sign of democracy. If the number of the pressure groups increases or their clout increases, they become effective agents of the political participation.

Education

Pressure groups create a better informed and more educated electorate by promoting political debate, discussion and argument. This improves the quality of the public policy.

Without pressure groups, the public and the media would have to rely on a relatively narrow range of political views, those expressed by the government of the day and a small number of major parties.

Benefits of competition

Pressure groups help to promote democracy by widening the distribution of political power. They do this, in part, because groups compete against one another. This ensures that no group or interest can remain dominant permanently.

How do pressure groups threaten democracy?

Widen Political Inequality

Pressure groups tend to empower the already powerful. Thus, they increase rather than reduce political inequality.  Though the Pluralists argue that political inequality is broadly democratic, in that the most successful groups tend to be ones with large membership, and which enjoy wide and possibly intense public support; this is practically very difficult to sustain.

Practically, the most powerful pressure groups tend to be the ones that possess money, expertise, institutional leverage and privileged links to government.

Non-legitimate power

The leaders of the pressure-groups are not elected so critics argue that they exercise influence with non-legitimate power. Only a handful of pressure groups operate on the basis of internal democracy. Most leaders of the pressure groups are self-proclaimed.

 ‘Behind the scenes’ influence

Pressure-group influence is not subject to scrutiny and public accountability. These groups, particularly the inside groups, usually exert influence ‘behind closed doors’ away from public and media scrutiny.

Tyranny of the minority

By their very nature, the pressure groups represent minorities rather than the majorities. Thus, in the wake of preventing the tyranny of the majority, they can create opposite problem. Many a times, they hold the governance to ransom.