POL S 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Materialism, Stein Rokkan
Document Summary
Groups that tend to organize around people with roughly similar political aims and opinions to elect candidates to public office. Not the same as interest groups: external (interest groups) vs internal (political) Internal: get your people elected, then their parties get to make all the decisions, external influence policy process from the outside, not running for office. I(cid:374)terest groups do(cid:374)"t ru(cid:374) for office: political parties do, more focused agenda. Interest groups have a narrow focus: (cid:862) i(cid:374)gle-issue groups(cid:863, political parties ca(cid:374)"t afford to (cid:374)arro(cid:449) their focus they are very marginalized. Political parties are still historically a new idea. They only emerged in the last two and a half centuries. Seamore martin lipset and stein rokkan: theory base on cleavages, divisions within society that can lead to at least a degree of polarization between groups. (wedge issues: gun rights, abortions, same sex marriage, etc. ) National revolutions: french revolution, war of spanish succession, continental reorganizations of government and society.
