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The History of Pressure Groups
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Pressure Groups and Lobbying
In this course, Professor Wyn Grant (University of Warwick) explores the importance of pressure groups and lobbying in the UK political system. In the first module, we think about the history of pressure groups and how they have changed over time, starting with the Anti-Corn Law League of the early 19th century and going all the way through the Extinction Rebellion in the present day. In the second module, we think about how we might categorise different kinds of pressure groups, before turning in the third module to a specific where a pressure group has set out to achieve a particular goal – and achieved it. In the fourth module, we think about the role of commercial lobbyists, i.e. groups that are paid to lobby on behalf of business interests, before turning in the fifth and final module consider whether pressure groups and lobbyists strengthen or undermine modern democracy.
The History of Pressure Groups
In this module, we think about the history of pressure groups and how they have changed over time, focusing in particular on: (i) the characteristics of the first ‘pressure groups’ – the Anti-Slavery Society (1823-38) and the Anti-Corn Law League (founded 1838); (ii) the rise of the political party as a means of effecting economic, political, and social change; (iii) the creation of chambers of commerce and trades union to represent business and workers’ interests, respectively; (iv) the influence of pressure groups in the First and Second World War and (especially) in the creation of the Welfare State, e.g. the British Medical Association, the National Farmers Union, etc.; (v) the increase in mass membership organisations from the 1960s onwards, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, the extent to which these groups represented a break from what had gone before, and the reason why these groups emerged at precisely this moment; and (vi) the rise of tripartism in the 1970s and its fall under Thatcher in the 1980s.
I'm Wyn Grant, emeritus professor of politics
00:00:06at the University of Warwick.
00:00:08And in this segment, I'm going to look at
00:00:09the history of pressure groups and lobbying.
00:00:11Today, we are used to a political landscape
00:00:14in which there are thousands of pressure
00:00:16groups with the royal society for the protection of birds
00:00:18having a bigger membership than all
00:00:21the political parties combined.
00:00:22The system of pressure groups we see today
00:00:24is a relatively modern phenomenon,
00:00:27but it is possible to trace it back to the 19th century.
00:00:29In many ways, the Anti-Corn Law League founded in 1836
00:00:33was the first modern pressure group.
00:00:37Although it borrowed some of its techniques
00:00:39from the earlier Anti-Slavery Movement, particularly
00:00:41its strong moral stance, however,
00:00:44it was the first powerful national lobbying group,
00:00:47one with a centralized office, consistency of purpose,
00:00:50rich-funding, very strong local and national organization,
00:00:53and single-minded dedicated leaders.
00:00:58Now its immediate political legacy
00:01:01was actually relatively limited.
00:01:03Many of its activists went on to become
00:01:05involved in political parties, particularly the Liberal Party.
00:01:07As the franchise widened, it was the political party
00:01:11that was the favored mode of action
00:01:14in the late 19th and early 20th century.
00:01:16Business did start to organize at the local level
00:01:19through chambers of commerce, often in response
00:01:22to what was seen as high charges and poor service
00:01:25by the railways.
00:01:28The emerging trade union movement
00:01:30formed the Trades Union Congress in 1868.
00:01:31However, the focus of the emerging labor movement
00:01:36increasingly turned to the formation and development
00:01:38of the Labor Party.
00:01:41The First World War required a much closer relationship
00:01:43between government and industry in order
00:01:47to prosecute the war effort.
00:01:49And this led to the formation of the Federation
00:01:51of British industries as the main voice
00:01:53of business interest, flanked by trade associations that
00:01:55organize particular sectors of the economy.
00:01:59These often functioned as cartels to fix prices
00:02:02and market share for business.
00:02:05Now pressure group activity at this time
00:02:08had a very strong establishment flavor,
00:02:10which persisted well into the 1950s
00:02:13when the term establishment was actually
00:02:16coined for the first time.
00:02:17This type of establishment activity
00:02:20was exemplified by the city of London,
00:02:22which exerted a very considerable influence
00:02:25on economic policy.
00:02:27At the time, the city was not represented by organizations
00:02:29like the British Bankers Association as it is today,
00:02:32but its interests were represented
00:02:35by the governor of the Bank of England
00:02:37who had the ear of ministers, as well as the prime minister.
00:02:39Business leaders interacted with politicians and civil servants
00:02:43in their London clubs over lunch or dinner.
00:02:46Now just as the First World War brought out
00:02:50a major change in the relationship between government
00:02:52and groups, the Second World War had
00:02:55an even bigger transformative effect
00:02:57along with the labor government that was formed after the war.
00:02:59It marked the start of what is often
00:03:03called the Keynesian Welfare State named
00:03:05after the influential economist John Maynard Keynes.
00:03:08Government accepted responsibility
00:03:11for maintaining a full employment economy,
00:03:14and also providing welfare for its citizens
00:03:16through the National Health Service and other innovations.
00:03:19This drew government into a much closer relationship
00:03:23with a number of groups.
00:03:26The National Health Service gave a new importance
00:03:28to British Medical Association, the organization
00:03:30which represented doctors.
00:03:33And they struck a tough deal to maintain private medicine
00:03:35for hospital doctors as their price
00:03:38for accepting the introduction of public medicine.
00:03:40The Keynesian Welfare State drew government
00:03:44into a much closer relationship with many other parts
00:03:46of the economy and their representative organizations.
00:03:49For example, the 1947 Agriculture Act
00:03:53gave the National Farmers Union an effective representational
00:03:55monopoly as the voice of farmers,
00:03:59and set up a process whereby government engaged
00:04:01in an annual set of negotiations to fix
00:04:04the prices that were received by farmers for their products.
00:04:06Most pressure groups at this period
00:04:10represented various sections of the economy.
00:04:12And such cause groups as existed had a strong establishment
00:04:15flavor, such as the then council for the preservation
00:04:19of Rural England, which had a very upper class membership.
00:04:22It was full of retired military officers.
00:04:26Other groups effectively represented
00:04:30professional interests such as the Howard League for Penal
00:04:31Reform whose members were primarily
00:04:35magistrates, probation officers, and prison visitors
00:04:37and who were campaigning for better treatment of prisoners.
00:04:41All this changed, though, in the late 1960s and the 1970s
00:04:44with the formation of mass membership groups
00:04:49advocating particular causes such as Greenpeace and Friends
00:04:52of the Earth.
00:04:55In some ways, they were a revival
00:04:57of the model of the anti-colonial league,
00:04:59particularly in terms of their claim to the moral high ground,
00:05:01but they also relied upon a new repertoire of direct action
00:05:05techniques.
00:05:09For example, they dumped a large quantity
00:05:11of non-returnable bottles outside the offices
00:05:13of a soft drink company.
00:05:16These actions were designed to attract
00:05:18the attention of the mass media, further boosting
00:05:20the recruitment of supporters.
00:05:23Interestingly, contemporary climate change activists
00:05:25see them now as rather old-fashioned
00:05:29in terms of their repertoire of techniques.
00:05:31And of course, in many ways, things have moved on.
00:05:33But they are an important development at the time.
00:05:35Why did these groups emerge at that point in time?
00:05:38One of the biggest factors was the expansion
00:05:42of education at a secondary and higher level.
00:05:44More educated individuals were willing to challenge
00:05:47the existing orthodoxies, and their education
00:05:50gave them the skills they needed to do so.
00:05:53The growth of these groups also reflected the success
00:05:56of the Keynesian Welfare State.
00:05:59Many basic material needs have been satisfied,
00:06:01and people started to look much more broadly
00:06:05at the state of society and their needs for self
00:06:07fulfillment.
00:06:10For example, for women to have the choice
00:06:11of a legal abortion or an end to the prosecution of homosexuals.
00:06:13This was really the start of what we refer
00:06:19to today as identity politics.
00:06:21Economic growth was no longer seen as an unquestioned good.
00:06:23There was a new awareness of its more negative side,
00:06:27particularly the impact it had on the environment.
00:06:30So the Keynesian Welfare State started to encounter problems.
00:06:34Its promise of full employment tended to stoke inflation.
00:06:37And Keynes himself admitted that he
00:06:41had no answer on how it could be kept under control.
00:06:43This led successive governments to revise prices and incomes
00:06:47policies in an attempt to control inflation.
00:06:51This in turn led to a much closer relationship
00:06:54between government, organized business, and the Trade Union
00:06:57Movement, which came to be referred to as tripartisan
00:07:00or corporatism.
00:07:04Business and the unions were allowed the opportunity
00:07:05to influence the making of economic policy.
00:07:08Tripartisan reached its height under
00:07:11the Heath conservative government of 1970-74
00:07:13and the Labor government of 1974 to 1979.
00:07:17But Mrs. Thatcher thought this was
00:07:21a very undesirable development.
00:07:23She had no time for tripartisan, and she
00:07:25distanced her government from both business and the trade
00:07:28unions.
00:07:31Pressure group activity today is much more
00:07:32part of mass politics.
00:07:34But some of the old elitist politics
00:07:36still survives and remains influential.
00:07:38The arrival of the social media has had a major impact
00:07:42on the way in which pressure groups operate.
00:07:46And I shall talk about this in a subsequent segment.
00:07:48
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Grant, W. (2020, December 21). Pressure Groups and Lobbying - The History of Pressure Groups [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/pressure-groups-and-lobbying/role-of-commercial-lobbyists
MLA style
Grant, W. "Pressure Groups and Lobbying – The History of Pressure Groups." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 21 Dec 2020, https://massolit.io/courses/pressure-groups-and-lobbying/role-of-commercial-lobbyists