Pluralist Politics

PLURALISM REFERS TO politics as a process by which people form or join groups that reflect their interests. The groups, in turn, compete for political influence, both in election campaigns and outside the electoral process. Pluralistic models of politics generally hold that political attention and involvement are selective. People who are interested in environmental issues will pay attention to them and mobilize when they want to draw attention to an environmental problem or to influence an upcoming environmental decision. When another issue, such as antipoverty policy, gains prominence, a largely different slate of people and groups will take the field, and most environmentalists will continue their focus on environmental causes or become politically dormant.

According to pluralists, political power is quite widely (but not necessarily equally) dispersed, and somewhat unstable; people who are politically irrelevant today may be influential tomorrow if they mobilize on an issue of concern to them. At any given time, political information, activity, and influence are likely to be unevenly distributed, but the distribution varies from issue to issue and changes over time. Consequently, sensible officials who value re-election will try to anticipate public reactions to governmental decisions and positions taken in campaigns. People who are inattentive and inactive at the time of an action may become attentive and active later and, as a result, affect an official or candidate's career. Pluralistic politics have a number of implications for campaigns and elections.

One of the most important linkages noted between pluralist politics and the electoral process in the political parties literature, is scholars' observation that political groups were an important component of many political parties. In this view, political parties are often coalitions of smaller groups, some of which have different priorities from one another, or even altogether different interests. A group's relationship with a political party may change over time, from strong support to opposition or vice versa, and one test of party and campaign leadership is the ability to keep different groups together, whether during a single campaign or over a longer time period. Group affiliations may influence a political party's public image, as in the case of a party regarded as friendly to working-class people, wealthy people, farmers, or racial minorities.

Pluralist politics may assist candidates and political parties by calling attention to issues or problems, but the result can also create complications. When a group criticizes officials in office, an action that may duplicate somewhat the watchdog role of the opposition party, the result may be helpful to the party that is out of power or a candidate who is challenging an incumbent. If a group runs attack ads against one candidate, other candidates in the race may benefit from the damage inflicted, while appearing to be above the fray. When a group praises the actions of politicians in office, the result may be helpful for incumbents. However, groups may sometimes raise issues that create division in one or more parties, and may divert attention from issues that some candidates or parties want to emphasize.

Political groups may assist campaigns in a wide variety of ways, including contributing money to campaigns, or spending money “independently” to praise or criticize a candidate, and providing volunteer labor for campaigns to distributing information through group newsletters and websites. A group may give a candidate a forum to gain publicity and may also give [Page 501]the candidate background information and analysis on one or more issues. Groups may draft proposals and then try to find candidates or officeholders who are willing to endorse them.

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