Interests Groups in Texas

853 Words4 Pages
What are interest groups? How do they define our American government? Do interest groups contribute to our American politics? Many people do not know much about interest groups and what they do. In addition many other highly opinionated Americans believe interest groups only work for themselves and are selfish. But what are interest groups? Interest groups are an organized collection of individuals who are bound together by shared attitudes or concerns and who make demands on political institutions in order to realize goals which they are unable to achieve on their own (Robinson 49). Many individuals opt to join interest groups for many reasons such as getting their interests, thoughts and ideologies heard by the government. Interest groups vary in every way in size, resources, tactics, policy focus, geographical focus, ideological orientation etc. (Texas Politics 2013). Since Texas is such a big state and has so many different races, ethnicities all with different needs this is where we can see interest groups come into play. Interest groups look out for each other and their goal in Texas just as any other interest groups around the country is to be heard. Some groups only focus on single issues and others on broader topics of public policy. All these people want is for their issues to be heard and dealt with by the government. Although the government of Texas cannot satisfy every group it is just physically impossible because there is just too many of them. But all interest groups of Texas have a common goal to try and make Texas better in their eyes although this is where some dilemma is caused because what can be “good” for the state in one’s eyes may be bad for the other person in their eyes. The pluralist vision of politics is an ideal vision of interest group politics and political institutions. In practice, both in the United States and in Texas, interest
Open Document