Title: 
Headings: Groups and Interests
Groups and Interests
Chapter Study Outline
Introduction
1. What Are the Characteristics of Interest Groups?
2. How and Why Do Interest Groups Form?
3. How Do Interest Groups Influence Policy?

Content: How do interest groups overcome these impediments to collective action? Although pluralist theory argues that groups should form whenever they can further people’s collective interests, there is a considerable disparity in Washington group representation across categories of individuals and interests in the population. Interest groups facilitate cooperation among like-minded citizens despite the fact that working collectively is not always rational at the individual level. The prisoner’s dilemma metaphor (wherein two prisoners accused of a crime have rational incentives to testify against one another but would both benefit if they refused to testify) suggests that individually rational behavior does not always lead to rational collective results. In The Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson argued that it was in an individual’s rational self interest to be a “free rider” rather than to join a group or otherwise participate in collective efforts and that the collective-action problem was felt most deeply by large, diverse groups. Interest groups provide selective benefits to group members to overcome the impediments to collective action; such selective benefits include informational, material, solidary, and purposive benefits. Informational benefits include special newsletters, periodicals, training programs, conferences available only to group members. Material benefits are the special goods, services, or money provided to entice members to join groups. Solidary benefits emphasize the friendship, networking, and consciousness-raising advantages of belonging to a group.