Jack HAYWARD - Interest groups, pluralism and democracy

Pouvoirs n°79 - Les groupes d’intérêt - novembre 1996 - p.5-19

Society-led states of the liberal and pluralist Anglo-American type are contrasted with state-led societies in Continental Europe which sought institutionally to incorporate interest groups through formal functional representation to subordinate the undesirable activities of pressure groups to a democratic specification of the public interest. Four stereotypes of group-government relations are distinguished : competition, consultation, concertation and co-optation, followed by four contexts in which they take place. These are endemic conflict ; routine consensual relations ranging from concertation, trough concertation to neo-corporatism ; social contract ; and domination and institutional collapse in crisis situations. Finally, the European Union provides an example of how a pluralistic pattern of interest group activity has developed in countries that were not predisposed to this type of group-government relationship. Résumé

Référence électonique : Jack HAYWARD, "Interest groups, pluralism and democracy", Pouvoirs, revue française d’études constitutionnelles et politiques, n°79, 1996, p.5-19. Consulté le 17-02-2012. URL : http://www.revue-pouvoirs.fr/Interest-groups-pluralism-and.html