A political party exists to gain power through elections by supporting one or more candidates. For instance, in the United States, Republicans and Democrats are the two main political parties and, every four years, new or old candidates are put forward by the two parties to run for elections.
Political parties focus on a variety of issues, including:. A political party can include all citizens that identify with the party itself — even if they are not officially registered.
Political parties aim at gaining power by supporting their candidates , they can be flexible about different issues and they are often criticized for prioritizing the interests of politicians rather than the needs of the population.
Interest groups are groups of people that share similar ideas on specific issues and that come together to influence public opinion. Yet, interest groups do not run for elections and do not necessarily support individual candidates but they do seek the abolition or the approval of specific laws by lobbying and campaigning.
Interest groups can include:. Interest groups focus on specific issues, like gun control, environmental laws or minimum wages. They are usually not flexible and their strength largely depends on their size and on their influence on the broader population as well as on their ability to lobby politicians or influential individuals.
Although they are different in substance, political parties and interest groups share some common features:. Political parties and interest groups differ on various levels: they can have different sizes, they can be focused on different issues and they can have different goals. The main difference between the two concerns their primary purpose: political parties aim at achieving power over governmental policy by supporting a candidate and winning elections; conversely, interest groups are created to promote a position or a view on specific issues but do not have members running for office.
As such, interest groups often vote for candidates — who are put forward by political parties — who share their point of view. Thus, a member of the organization or a citizen concerned about voting rights need not be an expert on the legislative process or the technical or legal details of a proposed bill to be informed about potential threats to voting rights.
Other interest groups function in similar ways. For example, the NRA monitors attempts by state legislatures to tighten gun control laws. Interest groups facilitate political participation in a number of ways. Some members become active within a group, working on behalf of the organization to promote its agenda. Some interests work to increase membership, inform the public about issues the group deems important, or organize rallies and promote get-out-the-vote efforts.
Sometimes groups will utilize events to mobilize existing members or encourage new members to join. Interest groups also organize letter-writing campaigns, stage protests, and sometimes hold fundraisers for their cause or even for political campaigns. Some interests are more broadly focused than others. AARP formerly the American Association of Retired Persons has approximately thirty-seven million members and advocates for individuals fifty and over on a variety of issues including health care, insurance, employment, financial security, and consumer protection.
This organization represents both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and many who do not identify with these categorizations. On the other hand, the Association of Black Cardiologists is a much smaller and far-narrower organization. Over the last several decades, some interest groups have sought greater specialization and have even fragmented. As you may imagine, the Association of Black Cardiologists is more specialized than the American Medical Association, which tries to represent all physicians regardless of race or specialty.
Health care is an important concern for AARP and its members, so the organization makes sure to maintain connections with key policymakers in this area, such as Katherine Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services from to , shown here with John Rother, director of legislation and public policy for AARP. Interest groups and organizations represent both private and public interests in the United States. Private interests usually seek particularized benefits from government that favor either a single interest or a narrow set of interests.
For example, corporations and political institutions may lobby government for tax exemptions, fewer regulations, or favorable laws that benefit individual companies or an industry more generally. Their goal is to promote private goods. Private goods are items individuals can own, including corporate profits.
An automobile is a private good; when you purchase it, you receive ownership. Wealthy individuals are more likely to accumulate private goods, and they can sometimes obtain private goods from governments, such as tax benefits, government subsidies, or government contracts.
On the other hand, public interest groups attempt to promote public, or collective, goods. Such collective goods are benefits—tangible or intangible—that help most or all citizens. These goods are often produced collectively, and because they may not be profitable and everyone may not agree on what public goods are best for society, they are often underfunded and thus will be underproduced unless there is government involvement.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, a government corporation, provides electricity in some places where it is not profitable for private firms to do so. Other examples of collective goods are public safety, highway safety, public education, and environmental protection. With some exceptions, if an environmental interest promotes clean air or water, most or all citizens are able to enjoy the result.
So if the Sierra Club encourages Congress to pass legislation that improves national air quality, citizens receive the benefit regardless of whether they are members of the organization or even support the legislation. Many environmental groups are public interest groups that lobby for and raise awareness of issues that affect large segments of the population. As the clean air example above suggests, collective goods are generally nonexcludable, meaning all or most people are entitled to the public good and cannot be prevented from enjoying it.
Furthermore, collective goods are generally not subject to crowding, so that even as the population increases, people still have access to the entire public good. Thus, the military does not protect citizens only in Texas and Maryland while neglecting those in New York and Idaho, but instead it provides the collective good of national defense equally to citizens in all states. As another example, even as more cars use a public roadway, under most circumstances, additional drivers still have the option of using the same road.
They basically focus on one or two specific matters. Political parties generally exist to have power by supporting one or more candidates in the election. Like in the United States, democrats and republicans are the two political parties; after every four years, they put forward new or old candidates from the parties to take part in the election.
These parties mainly focus on the matter like social welfare of the people, equity of rights is given to each citizen in the country, taxes are fairly paid, maintain a good and healthy foreign relation, each one has given health care and gun control. Political parties comprise all the citizens who are identified with the party itself, even when they are not officially registered. The interest group is basically the group of people who share a similar opinion on some matters which come together to affect public opinion.
Though an interest group does not participate in the election and does not support any candidate from the parties, they try to stop or the assent on particular law by campaigning and lobbying.
Purpose To facilitate in determining who holds government office. To influence the policy choices made by the officeholders. A political party refers to an association of persons, set up voluntarily so as to promote policies and principles, to run the government.
It also nominates and supports some of its party members as leaders for the purpose of elections. The members agree to the ideology of the party, concerning various policies and programmes for the welfare of the society at large. And they look for the implementation of these policies by winning the majority votes of the population in elections.
So, it indicates underlying divisions of the society based on the ideologies of different political parties. It exercises and looks for political power by way of constitutional means, so as to put its policies into practice. Simply put, a political party is a body of people with similar values, opinions, and views on matters that concerns the general public. An interest group can be defined as a formally organized association of people, which attempts to influence public policy.
It covers all those intermediary organizations or bodies that work for the betterment of the society or state. They play a significant role in every country as they influence the process of policymaking.
0コメント