Pressure groups activity in the UK presents a major threat to democracy. Evaluate the arguments in favour of this view (25 marks) Pressure groups aim to influence government policy without seeking election itself. The actions of pressure groups challenge and influence democracy as well as being beneficial to democracy in the UK as pressure groups challenge policies and put pressure on the government to change them. On the other hand pressure groups only represent a minority of people’s views and aren’t considered a major threat to democracy. Robert Dahl and Charles Lindbolm suggest a pluralist view of democracy suggesting that pressure groups are beneficial to democracy.
With the rise in the professional politician many prefer to remain loyal in order to gain power and move up in the hierarchy as opposed to become a rebel who remains in the back benchers. This can be seen after the vote on tuition fees and the liberal democrats. Despite the fact that they had campaigned for this cause endlessly only 26 (including a few Conservatives) chose to vote against the bill. Whips play an important part in removing efficiency from Parliament. By having whips who ensure that MPs behave in accordance to the decisions of the executive both Parliaments ability to scrutinise and hold the executive to account is diminished, but also their role as representatives of their individual constituency is also compromised.
Fear for ones safety, for ones loved ones and for ones nation can make any individual act. With this, it is no surprise that politicians use fear as a political strategy for their own purposes. Barrack Obama once stated “We have been operating under a politics of fear: fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants, fear of people of different religious beliefs, fears of gays that they might get married and that somehow that would affect us," (“Begley”). Fear has been used in politics to manipulate the people’s views and ideas. The government is meant to protect its citizens, so naturally if that government were to scare citizens and offer a solution to that fear, they would be more likely to supports its efforts.
This is criticised because the current political party in power have the ability to make their own decisions for the UK before listening to what the people want. This then becomes a problem because they may make changes that the majority of the population will not agree with. However, near to the next election they may decide to listen to people as they want them to vote for them (the current political party in power) during the next election. Secondly, the UK has a hereditary monarchy and a house of lords, both which are not elected. This contradicts a democratic society and is seen as a dictatorship because elections are the cornerstone of a democracy.
To the government the whole reason of the law was to guarantee land owners profits of which they had became accustomed to during the war. However opponents of the regime both inside and outside of the regime only saw the law as a class piece of legislation in which the law saved landowners from three things: cheaper foreign grain, stabilised prices and making corn more expensive for the consumer. This concept and idea was not new, a similar law 1804 had been introduced to guarantee 80 shillings a quarter. In spite of this the government had problems to face including riots, petitions and demonstrations. The main protest for this law, was the Luddism riots and machine breaking.
Above all, he suggests these leaders deliberately make themselves into outsiders within government. They separate themselves from its other members and so are able to act independently, but also remain part of government itself. Thatcher and Reagan took this a step further: they even criticised governments of which they were the head, suggesting that they tended to be insufficient, wasteful and simply tried to do too much. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher was promising to ‘roll back the frontiers of the state;, was roundly criticising the civil service for its conservatism and wastefulness and was not averse to openly opposing her own ministers. Blair chose to adopt certain areas of policy as his own – foreign affairs, Northern Ireland, education and health – and attempted to dominate the political agenda by introducing his own policy initiatives above the heads of the relevant ministers.
Source B is a secondary source, looking back from the perspective of a historian, onto previous events. This would make the source a less reliable representation, as the source maker was not actually present during the event, so is having to rely on already present evidence to construct his own arguments. The time difference would also effect the viewpoints put forward as to the reasons for Lloyd Georges introduction of the budget. Lloyd Georges speech, given at the time the budget was being evaluated by the House of Lords, would be used as a direct method of political propaganda, attempting to appeal to the masses to maintain political power for the Liberal party. However, source A suggests that’s the reasons Lloyd George introduced the budget was not for private, self-gratified reasons, but for the benefit of the majority of the British state.
Sometimes this can conflict with their party’s policy, but there are many occasions when such MPs can protect their constituents and take it up further with the party, and any other government bodies. It is a key part of the democratic system that each individual feels that there is an elected representative who will listen to their problems, and try to resolve them. Also to some extent both Houses of Parliament are expected to act as representatives of society as a whole, as the MPs/Peers express their concerns to them and they have to make final decisions. The second main feature of the UKs democratic system is direct democracy, more precisely referendums: to some extent Britain is becoming more of a consultative democracy which is a limited kind of direct democracy, but the true meaning is where the citizens themselves make critical decisions, the device used for this is a referendum: this is an occasion when citizens, either all or just in a specific region, are asked to determine a question of public importance. A referendum is
Elected public officials gain office by earning the trust of the majority to represent a wide range of their interests in governmental matters. During the course of an election, many discussions on the morals of different topics will be tossed about but in the end the moral arguments have no bearing during the course of legislation. Dorn states that “the role of government in a free society is not to legislate morality . . .
For some, pressure groups are a fundamental part of democracy. To others, pressure groups undermine the whole principle of democracy. Democracy is a system of government where decisions are arrived at by majoritarian principles with representatives elected at periodic elections where political equality and political freedom allow the voter an effective choice between competing candidates in a secret ballot. How do pressure groups fit in with this concept? In the pluralist model of democracy, pressure groups play an essential role.