The Role of Pressure Groups in British Legislative Politics, 1945-1989

30 Pages Posted: 19 Nov 2008 Last revised: 14 Dec 2008

See all articles by Razvan Vlaicu

Razvan Vlaicu

Inter-American Development Bank; University of Maryland

Date Written: September 2008

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between pressure groups and British executive-legislative institutions during a period of increased government interventionism following the Second World War. In spite of a phase of tripartite institutions and practices, during 1961-1979, the British system of interest representation remained largely pluralistic. Yet it stayed functionally different from its US counterpart. I offer an alternative explanation for the markedly dissimilar impacts of special interest groups in the UK parliamentary system and the US presidential system. A simple game theoretic model facilitates a comparative analysis of the political incentives faced by pressure groups in the two systems. I establish that concentration of proposal power in the executive branch of government together with institutions that foster voting cohesion in the ruling coalition have made the parliamentary UK legislature less responsive to demands for protection from special interests; in a competitive, pluralist, system of interest representation, where organization is costly, fewer interests will organize into pressure groups. These predictions are consistent with survey data from several sources.

Keywords: pressure groups, legislative institutions, post-war Britain, parliamentary vs. presidential government

JEL Classification: D72, H10, H70, N44

Suggested Citation

Vlaicu, Razvan, The Role of Pressure Groups in British Legislative Politics, 1945-1989 (September 2008). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1303224 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1303224

Razvan Vlaicu (Contact Author)

Inter-American Development Bank ( email )

1300 New York Ave NW
Washington, DC 20577
United States

University of Maryland ( email )

3114 Tydings Hall
College Park, MD 20742
United States

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