Professional Activist Organizations

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to both freedom of association and freedom of expression. The view that people should be free to organize themselves so as to pursue their shared interests to maximum effect has been one of the enduring—even defining—features of the American political landscape. In his classic work Democracy in America, first published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville noted the American tendency for people to form together into associations to promote their interests, which struck him forcefully because it was a freedom even then much more commonly exercised in the United States than in Europe. One of the manifestations of this predilection today is to be found in the sheer number of professional and trade associations that are actively engaged in advocacy.