Democracy: Minority Rule and Rejection of the Majority
Currently, pressure groups have become an integral part of democratic political systems. The main factors determining the influence and power of these groups in society include political culture, institutional arrangements, the nature of the party system, and the level of government involvement in social and economic life.
While these groups are not directly responsible for policymaking and political decision-making, they seek to influence the public policymaking process and decision-makers at the macro level by organizing and advocating for their interests. These groups impact the stages of “problem identification and definition,” “policy formulation,” and “policy implementation.” They endeavor to introduce issues and problems related to their interests that may jeopardize them, or important societal issues, into the official government agenda. This aims to prompt the government to approve a new policy to address these issues or to change or terminate existing policies.
In newly industrialized countries, due to the deep influence of public opinion and various social groups, especially official groups, they try to align public opinion with their own by using various means. For this purpose, many well-equipped institutions, which are known in sociology as pressure groups or imposition groups, are created. Therefore, pressure groups, as a tool in the hands of the ruling classes, play a significant role in changing and distorting public opinion, and they can create changes in public opinion through indirect means and with the help of various tools such as images, language, lines, etc.
Arousing public emotions and preparing people to accept certain opinions is one of the goals of pressure groups. These groups always try to align the public opinion with their goals or impose their desired opinion on the public by using different methods. In other words, the pressure group consists of people who have a common interest and want to defend it. The pressure group often plays a negative role in society; These groups are under the microscope and influence of groups that apparently don’t appear objectively in the society, but by interfering and exerting invisible influences, they positively or negatively move the process of social affairs according to their wishes and take advantage of it.
Some of the methods pressure groups use to influence policy are as follows:
1. Lobbying with government officials.
2. Legal action through judicial follow-up of government officials.
3. Forming election campaigns to support or oppose a certain trend.
4. Protesting the performance of various government components by holding demonstrations.
5. Using industrial power to hit political goals contrary to their interests.
6. Holding news conferences to put pressure on the executive and legislature.
7. Slandering the government to achieve their goals.
In other words, pressure groups are one of the forces of the minority, and beyond that, they are a hidden minority within another minority. Compared to the people, these groups aren’t only a minority, but they also play the role of a minority among their respective systems. Many of these groups theoretically operate on the principles of democracy, but in reality, most of their activities are carried out by a handful of central groups.
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