Interest Groups and Pluralism

Interest groups in pluralist democracies aggregate and represent their members' political preferences. First, we define an interest group as a collective political actor seeking to influence governmental policy decisions. Next, we review recent research on US and European interest groups, highlighting their contexts and structures, strategies and actions, and influence on public policy outcomes. Then we assess policy network research as a distinct subfield that applies social network analytic methods to reveal how interestgroup coalitions form and how their influence-activities affect policy decisions. Finally, we offer three suggestions for future directions in research on interest groups.