A major work by one of America's most eminent political scientists,
"Political Organizations" has had a profound impact on how we view
the influence of interest groups on policy making. James Q. Wilson
wrote this book to counter two ideas: that popular interests will
automatically generate political organizations and that such
organizations will faithfully mirror the opinions and interests of
their members. Moreover, he demonstrated that the way in which
political organizations (including parties, business groups, labor
unions, and civil rights associations) are created and maintained
significantly affects the opinions they represent and the tactics
they use. Now available for the first time in paperback, this book
has broadened its scope to include recently developed organizations
as it addresses many of today's concerns over the power of such
groups as special-interests lobbies.
In 1973, when this book was first published, the press and
public were fascinated by the social movements of the 1960s,
thinking that the antiwar and civil rights movements might sweep
aside old-fashioned interest-group lobbies. Wilson argued, however,
that such movements would inevitably be supplanted by new
organizations, ones with goals and tactics that might direct the
course of action away from some of the movement's founding
principles. In light of the current popular distress with
special-interest groups and their supposed death-grip on Congress,
Wilson again attempts to modify a widely held view. He shows that
although lobbies have multiplied in number and kind, they remain
considerably restrained by the difficulty they have in maintaining
themselves. His approach charts a useful middle course between the
pluralist and the rational-choice schools of thought.
General
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