Question

The three mechanisms through which social groups/classes can attempt to influence or shape politics: interest groups, elections, and social movements. What are their limitations and possible problems?

Answer 1

Society is a group of people and there are conflicting interests of the people which could clash. In such a case, there should be some regulation or moral framework to have some common ground. Members of the society could have interest groups or social movements or they can hold elections to achieve this but each has some limitations.

Interest Groups - It is a group of people having some common interest such as retailers association, cab driver association or simply a group of individual people who joins and have some common goal. However, this is a non-political party and it is to influence government regulation or decisions. The most important problem of such group is organization and co-ordination. It can not create influence unless it has a sizeable number of members but as numbers rise it could create differences in members and rival factions emerges within that group. Further, there could be other groups which are there for the same goal and in that case competition among them and lack of co-ordination could defeat the purpose of the group. labor organizations are quite a good example of that.

Elections - Elections are one of the most popular ways of influencing government where people choose their representatives to have favorable policies. However, this is marred by principal and agent problem as the moral framework has degraded and legal options are not that effective. Representatives often exploit their power for own benefits and cling on to power with populist policies which in the long run disastrous for the organization or society.

Social Movements - Social movements are a loose organization and they are generated suddenly most of the times. However, one of the major issues about them is reaching to the people effectively and mobilizing resources. Water scarcity and global warming is a major problem in this world and many social movements have emerged for that but mobilizing resource and creating deep awareness about that is still not possible. Developing countries like India is a good example of that which has mass population but negligent in environmental conservation.