ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses the role interest groups play in the policy-making process and assesses their impact on public policy outputs. It discusses a number of models of the policy-making process and introduces various theories to explain how policy making works. It explains what an interest group is and how such groups influence policy making. It examines why some groups have more influence on governments and policy making than others, exploring this within the framework of pluralist, corporatist, and policy-network models of interest group behaviour. It evaluates the impact of sectional and cause-centred interest groups on policy making through an examination of debates on issues such as the economy, the environment, and same-sex marriage. Finally, the chapter discusses the degree of corrupt influence deemed to have affected aspects of the policy-making process and the steps taken, particularly the introduction of legislation on the regulation of lobbying, to try to combat this.
