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To What Extent Do Pressure Groups Undermine Democracy

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To What Extent do Pressure Groups Undermine Democracy
A pressure group in a group that doesn’t hold candidates for election into parliament but still aim to influence legislation passed by government that takes their aims and objectives into consideration. It can be argued that Pressure groups are undemocratic due to the leaders and all members being unelected. However pressure groups have higher and ever increasing participation levels than political parties, meaning that membership to a pressure group may be the contemporary method of being involved in politics.
It can be argued that Pressure Groups are a positive thing for democracy because of the extent to which they inform the public on important issues through their campaigning for members or signatures, having the public more informed and knowledgeable on issues such as climate change or immigration is beneficial due to the fact that they will understand parties policies better and be more confident in who they vote for. On the other hand Pressure Groups can be criticised due to them only informing the public of their biased, one-sided opinion which could be viewed as misinformation.
Cause/promotional groups that are involved in issues such as climate change or wildlife preservation can be viewed as democratic because their objective aren’t solely for the benefit of its own members but also the wider community. Though this is democratic, some pressure groups such as financial groups would be better funded and have more ‘insider’ members. Insider member are those that have close ties to government through having members that are in parliament. This can be seen as undemocratic due to those groups having a higher chance of their issues being advocated in parliament than a smaller group who don’t have the same connections. Also due to larger parties having a higher amount of funding, their campaign is usually

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