Conclusion

Abstract

No comparative study of pressure group politics can yield rigid or definitive conclusions. Political relationships are never static, and the political scientist must always retain a consciousness of the historical shifts and development of social and political forces. Furthermore, the examples chosen to illustrate an argument are necessarily selective. More exhaustive analysis of a particular political system might yield very different conclusions about the relationship between the state and the varied interests seeking to influence the decision-making process. A wider range of examples might well lead to different interpretations of the relative power of groups. Professional groups such as lawyers, teachers or doctors have been omitted from our discussion because the material available did not seem to permit comparisons of the sort which our purposes required; yet there is a strong prima facie case for regarding certain professional groups as extremely privileged. Finally, liberal democratic states are so different in their political structures, ideologies and traditions from the socialist regimes of the USSR and Eastern Europe as to raise the question of whether cross-national comparative analysis can yield any fruitful generalisations.