Critics say that pressure groups benefit the well organised but they disadvantage the weakly organised, subsequently working against the public interest. This is because the pressure groups run on donations for their funding. As a result, a pressure group with as little as two or three wealthy advocates may end up becoming influential and having its cause heard by the government. However, its members may not represent as much of the population as is suggested by the pressure group’s standing, thus creating inequality. This is amplified by the fact that the larger pressure groups can leave many smaller ones in their shadow.
However these are not representative of the nation as a whole indicating that America has not transformed into a 50:50 nation. Lastly, the US is becoming increasingly polarised as parties become polarised e.g. Republicans are conservative and Democrats are liberal people are either one or the other they do not take on a more moderate view although there are some that do this suggests that the statement is in fact true and that America has turned into a nation split down the middle. Overall America has become a split nation with no real political party dominating the country for a long period of time. Despite Republican dominance from 1994 – 2006 the change from Republicans to Democrats to Republicans illustrates the divide in the nation additionally, the polarisation of parties has made it so that votes either support one party or the
This can slow down the political process immensely, and as the government has a mandate to put through such legislation, pressure groups become undemocratic and start to undermine the democratic process. One last reason why pressure groups undermine democracy is the fact that they themselves may be undemocratic, and the leaders of these groups may not truly represent the views of their leaders. This undermines the whole point of pressure groups groups and thus can be seen as the 'politics of self-interest' and can present the public with overbiased and false information. Overall however, pressure groups are more likely to help the democratic process rather than hinder it, as they advance and improve political participation, and as participation is a vital part of democracy, pressure groups are an important part of the UK's democracy. While pressure groups may have unbalanced influence due to varying methods and funds, they are generally good at being a channel of representation between the people and the government, keeping the government in touch with the people.
Through this, our nation’s trust and confidence in our government has severely declined. How can ordinary people like us trust two very different parties with completely different viewpoints to agree and run our country smoothly? It is a hard concept to wrap your finger around. This is why trust in our government has declined. The increased cost of campaigns has also contributed to this
In 2010 backbenchers were threatening to rebel over tuition fees. This was enough to force concessions to be made so the rebellion wasn’t as large as expected. It could be said that they failed because the bill wasn’t defeated but in a way it was a success as changes were made. This shows that the image of being lobby fodder is being shaken off by the more outspoken MPs. It is difficult for a Backbench MP to influence government policy if a government has a large majority in Parliament.
Due to the lack of formal powers with the Governor of Texas, this power of persuasion is all the more important. Using the Governor’s personality, image and advisory staff, in today’s media frenzy world the Governor can use the power of persuasion smartly to overcome some of the shortfalls created by lack of formal power. In my opinion, the plural executive can have significant side effects, especially in today’s electrically charged partisan politics. Having a set of people who do not share a common vision and goal may be detrimental to the strategic growth of the state. On the other side, I agree with the argument that concentration of power can often lead to abuse of power.
How one interprets this information and correlates it into their personal beliefs and actions can be overwhelming. This can lead to strong convictions that politics in general are disintegrated and are irrelevant. Apathy towards the government and politics becomes more of a norm for some people, so why bother to vote at all? What is the incentive and why should it matter? I would address these issues with someone who has these dispositions in a number of ways.
Although there was changed tactics and a greater push from suffrage organisations to achieve the vote, it in some cases in fact alienated politicians and the public. As source 13 states “we have been told that we cannot have the same political rights which men have won unless we convert the whole country to our side”. This source being written by Emmeline Pankhurst means it very useful as it shows how people directly involved felt about what the suffrage movement had achieved, and from the implications of this source that was very little. If the leader of the WSPU claims herself that the movement is not making ‘substantial progress’ then it is very difficult to argue against this. They were beginning to make headway however this was still a long way to go before the movement had made substantial enough progress to gain the
‘HHMM’, Hollywood, Harvard, McDonald’s, and Microsoft, were selling not only their products but also America's culture and values, the secrets of its success, to the rest of the world.' However, employing only hard power or only soft power in a given situation will usually prove inadequate. Nye utilizes the example of terrorism, arguing simply utilizing soft power resources to change the hearts and minds of the Taliban government would be ineffective and requires a hard power component. Nevertheless, in the Middle East, in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists, the openness of Western culture is repulsive, which we have a term for it ‘anti-Americanism’. As a result, Joseph Nye, suggests that the most effective strategies in foreign policy today require a mix of hard and soft power resources, the ‘smart power’.
The political state of a nation which determines the liberality of the media also contributes Putting these reasons aside, the media also have times in which it does not act in public’s interest. This is due to factors such as the vested interests of various media owners as well as the lack of regulation of the media by authorities due to its self-regulating nature could result in the media to not act in the public interest. Therefore, even though in reality, the media do not always act in the interest of the public, the media do try to act in the public’s interest most of the time due to the high expectations from the public. Due to the public’s high expectations of the media, the media do act in the interest of the public all the time in terms of the accessibility to a variety of information. This is because the pervasive nature of the media thus leads to an immense power to deliver information that has the potential to influence people’s lives, which includes their thinking and beliefs.