About the lecture

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.

About the lecturer

Wyn Grant is Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Warwick. In 2010 he was presented with the Diamond Jubilee Lifetime Achievement award of the Political Studies Association of the UK, and in 2011 he was elected an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences. His most recent publication is Lobbying: The Dark Side of Politics (2018).