Interest Groups And Their Influences On The Making Of American Public Policy

In the past thirty years, political parties have declined in influence while interest groups have developed. Nowadays interest groups are occupying a position in American politics that has unprecedented power and influences. Interest groups compete to their favor to influence government decision to a certain degree. This profound change of American politics requires interest groups and their influence on policy-making to be checked and analyzed at some length.This thesis analyzes what interest groups do to influence the government policy-making by introducing interest groups and public policy theory. Then, the history of American medical reform is briefly reviewed. As a way of illustration, medical care reform by Obama government is selected as a case to demonstrate the way interest groups actually operates in the policy-making process. It illustrates that to influence and orient the public decision to their favor, groups would choose those strategies and tactics with which they are most skilled and practiced and which are most congruent with their resources. Interest groups not only have positive impacts on the public policy-making, but also have negative impacts. How government makes full use of such interest groups to perfect policy of democratic development and the effective implementation of policy is the crux of this thesis.