Pressure groups

Abstract

In the British context pressure groups have been defined in a number of different ways. W. J. M. Mackenzie defined them as ‘organised groups possessing both formal structure and real common interests in so far as they influence the decisions of public bodies’.¹ Moodie and Studdert-Kennedy defined them as ‘any organised group which attempts to influence Government’.² Samuel Finer defined them as ‘organisations … trying to influence the policy of public bodies in their own chosen direction, though never themselves prepared to undertake the direct Government of the country’.³ Peter Shipley defined them as ‘an association of individuals joined together by a common interest, belief, activity or purpose that seeks to achieve its objectives, further its interests and enhance its status in relation to other groups, by gaining the approval and co-operation of authority in the form of favourable policies, legislation and conditions.’⁴ Thus a pressure group is any group in society which, through political action, seeks to achieve changes which it regards as desirable or to prevent changes which it regards as undesirable.