ABSTRACT
Interest groups are distinguishable from government and political parties, even though cooperation with government departments or political parties is often extremely close. The term interest group is applied to a wide variety of organizations ranging from desperately poor environmental interest groups to lavishly financed corporations. The low membership density and fragmentation of American economic interests contrasted vividly with the situation in many other democracies. Thus the American interest group system presents a remarkable contrast in comparative perspective. The economic interest groups seem fragmented and often weak compared to foreign equivalents, the noneconomic interest groups strong. Until the late 1960s, most political scientists who studied interest groups focused on economic interest groups. By the 1980s, political support for capitalism in the United States was stronger than for many decades, so that corporations were able to use political resources to seek individual advantage rather than to defend the collective rights of business as such.
