Interest Group is defined as "an organized body of individuals who try to influence public policy." This system is designed so that interest groups would be an instrument of public influence on politics to create changes, but would not threaten the government much. Interest groups play many different roles in the American political system, such as representation, participation, education, and program monitoring. .
As Americans devote less and less time to an active participation in politics, they are increasing their participation in interest groups. As a result, politicians are losing touch with the constituents that they represent. To the modern politician, the special interest and "the people" have become objectively indistinguishable. It is natural for people of like minds to want to form an interest group, and with the proliferation of hyper pluralism Americans are finding that no matter what their interest, there is a group for them to join. The irony is that with the advent of more and more interest groups, each group wields less and less power. Americans like to blame special interest for many of the problems going on in politics today, but some of the criticisms are unfounded. While there are instances where special interest are a detriment to the political process, for the most part they are no more than an extension of the first amendment that serves the purpose of informing the representatives on issues that they might not have a lot of expertise on. As the strength of political parties continues to decline, individual members are gaining power. It is much easier for an interest group to target a single legislature then to change the views of the world.
Interest groups help more than hurt voter turnout has declined since 1960 but participation in interest groups has been growing. Participating in interest groups allows people to take action on issues that are most important to them.
