Interest Groups In American Politics

To begin with, it’s true that the essence of the democracy is people’s participation. But, there is other side of the visible government – the unelected. The unelected government is a shadow government of media and lobby that also claim to represent us and work behind the curtains. Highly sophisticated groups put the ordinary citizens aside and because of that these special groups influence more political decisions then ordinary citizens. Also, special groups or lobbyists support candidates financially at the time of the elections. In video, I could hear that lobbyists and financial funding are the conjoined twins of the American politics. Interestingly, corporate groups can get their hearing as a favor of their money contribution to the political

Now, the smaller groups often seek benefit by enrolling members; these smaller groups work towards a small portion of the population. Other side, “larger interest groups find it difficult to get an individual to join, so they offer incentives to the individual to join the group. Larger groups have millions of members; they are powerful enough to influence the government. Today, there are thousands of interest groups exist in the United States to influence the government.” (Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes, Maxwell, & Crain, 2007-2008) There are three types of incentives: Solidary, Material, and Purposive. Environmental groups offer solidary incentives to the members; member meets with other members with same interests and has a sense of belongings. Larger interest groups offer materialistic incentives in form of discounts, travel perks, and insurance plans to the members. Some larger groups give opportunity to the members to pursue political, economic and social

First, the interest group called American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), is a non-profit and social welfare organization with a membership of 38 million. As per AARP’s website, it helps people to turn their goals and dreams into real possibilities, strengthen communities and fights for the issue that matter most to the families – such as health care, employment and income security, and protection from financial abuse. AARP offers various kind of perks to its members – such as membership card with loaded benefits, rewards, discounts, insurance, Medicare options, travel benefits, and free roadside assistance. (AARP, 2017) AARP’s principal tactic to influence government is to mobilize its members to express their opinions to their legislators on key issues identified by AARP. Second, an organization called American Seniors Association (ASA), is a publicly traded company. ASA offers same benefits to the members as AARP with some extra perks. It is interesting how ASA brags about their conservativeness and noninvolvement in the politics. As per the website of ASA, “we won't play the Washington game when it comes to protecting your benefits. At American Seniors, we protect the interests of the nation's seniors.” (Association,