{"id":86,"date":"2025-07-09T15:33:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/?p=86"},"modified":"2025-08-14T22:13:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:13:11","slug":"chapter-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.routledgelearning.com\/americangovernment\/chapter-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Interest Groups: The Politics of Influence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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This chapter deals with organizations that attempt to influence government and society: interest groups. The chapter began with the historical development of interest groups as well as the Madisonian assumptions of the role played by factionalism within a large polity like the United States. Furthermore, a framing discussion was offered as to whether or not \u201cfactions\u201d of one type or another contribute to democracy (are deemed pluralistic) or detract from it (are seen as elitist).  The chief socio-economic change brought on before and after the Civil War was the industrialization\/urbanization that created an impetus for widespread group formation and activity. The Progressive\/New Deal eras and the Great Society period of the 1960s and 1970s ushered in the modern group system that we still see today with the addition of counter-action groups representing the political right\u2019s interests in the years during and after the consolidation of the Great Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interest group resources such as membership, leadership, and organization, as well as strategies employing insider (i.e. lobbying) and outsider (i.e. grassroots mobilizing), were discussed at length within the chapter. Groups were differentiated along economic\/private (e.g. peak associations and labor unions) and social\/public (e.g. issue and citizen advocacy groups) dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the chapter provided a case study of interest group agitation with a re-telling of the Obama Healthcare initiative. The case analysis emphasized the role of group activism both in support of and opposition to the proposed healthcare system changes that were signed into law by the president and upheld by the Supreme Court.  In addition, the analysis included the failed attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare by the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Quizzes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n