Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Get Your Faction On - Minor Parties and Interest Groups
After reading the information on minor parties (Chapter 5 - Section 4) and interest groups (Chapter 9 - Sections 1, 2, and 3) - respond to the following prompt: To what extent do minor parties and interest groups help or harm democracies? Defend your position by using a minimum of five citations from the readings.
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Minor parties can have a strong impact; a strong third-party candidacy can play decisive role-often a "spoiler role"- in an election. Even if a minor party does not win any electoral votes, it can pull votes from one of the major parties. the spoiler effect can be felt in national, Sate, or local contents, especially where the 2 major parties compete on roughly equal terms.(pg134) Interest groups have valuable functions; first, help stimulate interest in public affairs. second, they represent their members on the basis of shared attitudes rather than on the basis of geography-by what their members think as opposed to where they happen to live. third, organized interests often provide useful speacilized, and detailed info to government.fourth, interest groups are vehicles for political participation. finally, interst groups add another element to the system of checks and balences. (pg239)
Mionr parties and interest groups can both hurt and help the dermocrices.
For example, the Libertarian Party can hurt dermocracies becasue they believes
in, "Individualism and calls for doing away with most of government's present
functions and programs" (132). Also Interest groups can hurt the democrices
because they form groups of people to, "Shape public policy, they operate
whereever thoes policies are made or can be influenced" (237). The groups could
become powerful and be against the dermocrices and try and overpower it. Also,
"Many groups do not in fact represent the views of all of the people for whom
they clain to speak" (240).
Intrest groups could also be good becuase they can, "raise awarebess of oublic
affaris mostly by developing and promoting thoes policies they favor and by
opposing thoes policies they see as threats to their intrests" (239).
Minor parties and interest parties can both help and harm a democracy. For example, a minor party like the single-issue party can be helpful because one issue at a time is being focused on (132). That can be beneficial to a democracy because certain problems would get much needed attention. Yet at the same time other issues are being neglected which can be harmful. Minor parties can also be helpful because they have clear-cut views on controversial issues (135). Minor parties are also bring attention to important issues like women's rights and bank regulation (135). Interest groups are also have a vital impact. Interest groups raise awareness of public affairs that effect the people at large (239). A downside to interest groups are that many groups do not represent the views of all of the people which they speak of (240). Finally, interest groups can use tatics like bribery that can make the political system look bad (240). This can be harmful to a democracy because citizens could possibly lose faith in their government and that would ultimately have terrible consequences.
Minor parties affect us positive and negative ways. There are many examples that show us this, here are a few.
They have helped because "they have been most important in their roles of critics and innovator".(135) Another example is it helped nominate a presidential candidate in 1831(134). One final reason they help is they make nominations for our political parties(237).
Political parties hurt our democracy because they only care about the candidate running, no the issue(238). Another reason they hurt our democracy, is they are not accountable to the public, not the voters, their members(238).
Minor parties can help and hurt democracies to a certain extent. It may be hurtful because most minor parties are only focused on one idea and that is why they can never get major support (132). Another way they are hurtful is that some minor parties are splinter parties so they may take away votes from one of the major parties (133). One positive about minor parties is they (Anti-Masons) was the first party to hold a presidental convention. Interest groups also play a big role in minor parties because they could support a minor party and hurt one of the major candidate (237). An interest group hurt James Madison in his bid to be relected (238).
Minor parties and interest groups can hurt and help a democracy. A way that interest groups hurt a democracy is by forming groups of people to, "Shape public policy, they operate whereever those policies are made or can be influenced" (237). The Libertarian Party can hurt a democracy for their belief of "Individualism and calls for doing away with most of government's present functions and programs" (132). Lastly, political parties hurt our democracy because they are only interested in the running candidate, not the problem being covered (238). Regardless, they can still help us; a single-issue party only focuses on one issue, therefore other topics aren't being brought up & distracting the needed attention (132). Finally, interest groups help provoke interest in public affairs & raise awareness for such affairs (239).
Minor parties are helpful because they are split up into four separate parties: Ideological, single-issue, economic protest parties, and splinter parties. (chapter 9-section 4) Interest groups harm democracies because they use bribery and money to overt threats of revenge. (240) However, they "help stimulate interest in public affairs" (239). They are also helpful because they "unite for some political purpose" (237). It says that "every interest group seeks to influence the making and content of public policy" (236). I think this can be a help or a harm. It depends on how they try to influence the public policies.
Minor Parties and Interest Groups play an important role n our society today. Minor Parties are not known widely, but are benefital to our society in many ways. Most minor parties protest in order to gain more rights or to oppose rights that are unhealthy to our society. Interest groups organize efforts to protect the groups'interest. Most of these interest groups are involed in the public policy(p.236) as far as seat belts, speed limits, etc.
Even though most intentions of these groups may seem right,some rights that are passed may effect the other side of the arguement as well. Personally, I think a third party would be nice, because even followers of the democratic/republi
can nominees don't agree with all t
eir ideas, so a third party might h
elp settle some of the votes and id
eas come voting time. :)
Minor parties and interest groups undoubtedly help, rather than harm, democracies due to their issue-provoking nature, as well as their defiant opinions on certain issues. Although most Americans don’t specifically support minor parties, what they fail to realize is that a lot of the roots of American politics were formulated from the minor parties, such as the Democratic and Republican conventions (p. 134). Therefore, the minor parties continue to impact American politics today with bringing important issues to the forefront of the public’s attention, including issues such as income tax, woman suffrage, and old-age pensions (p. 135). In terms of interest groups, they tend to be just as effective and impacting as minor parties do on American politics (p. 236). For example, interest groups help to bring specific interests to the public’s attention and inform people of their opinions. Consequently, the more people that join an interest group, the more effective it will be (p.239). As the American public continues to prosper with interest groups across the nation, in a wide variety of interests including business, labor, agricultural, and professional, there will always be those who conflict with these groups (p. 246). In conclusion, while the minor parties and interest groups in America may not be at the forefront of politics, they continue to impact and influence the government the way we know it.
Minor parties have the power to take votes away from other canidents. And the interest groups have the ability, help stimulate interest in public affairs. second, they represent their members on the basis of shared attitudes rather than on the basis of geography-by what their members think as opposed to where they happen to live. third, organized interests often provide useful speacilized, and detailed info to government.fourth, interest groups are vehicles for political participation. finally, interst groups add another element to the system of checks and balences. (pg239)
Minpr parties can both help and harm the democrises. For example on (132) they explain that some minor parties have limited their efforts by either a particluar locale, state or region. Another example is on (239) they explain that public affairs stimulate interest and awareness public affairs mostly by developing and promoting policies.
Minor parties have a long history in democracy and still have an impact today in the United States. The Anti-Masons, a minor party was the first to nominate presidential candidates at a national convention in 1831 (134). Even if minor parties don't win any electoral votes, they can still be the "spoiler" and take away votes from major parties (134).Interest groups also play a major role in democracy. Interest groups exist to shape public policy (237). They try to persuade public officials to do things in their favor (236). Interest groups also raise awareness on issues they feel are important (239). They get people more involved with politics
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