American Interest Groups' Influence On Government Policy-Making

As political parties have declined in influence in the past thirty years, interest groups have blossomed and proliferated and are now occupying a position of unprecedented power and influence in American politics. To a certain degree, American politics is interest group politics, in which interest groups compete to influence government decision to their favor. This profound change of American politics requires that we examine interest groups and their influence on policy-making at some length.Interest groups attempt to influence policy in a direction favorable to their community. This thesis analyzes what competing interest groups do to influence the government policy-making. It illustrated that to influence and orient the public decision to their favor, groups will choose those strategies and tactics with which they are most skilled and practiced and which are most congruent with their resources base, which were not merely defined in terms of budgets.As a way of illustration, the Pacific Lumber Habitat Conservation Plan is selected as a case study to demonstrate the way interest group actually operates in the policy-making process. The issue embodies two major countervailing participators, notably, environmental groups and business groups. The HCP finally proscribed timber harvesting in Headwaters Grove and other 12 groves to provide wildlife protection for 50 years. The case has demonstrated that it is not necessarily true that the most economically powerful interest groups have the greatest impact on the formation of American public policy. Other factors such as group resources, strategies and tactics to a certain degree modify and affect the influence of interest groups on government policy-making.Policy-making is not simply a game among elected and appointed officials, played without an active audience. Interested individuals carefully watch and react to the actions of elected and appointed officials. Interest groups, when exercising their influences and resources in public interest, can be quite positive.