Extract Question Examples
Analyse, evaluate and compare the arguments in the above extract regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the roles played by interest groups within pluralist democracy in the UK
EXTRACT
Pluralism represents the view that different groups can compete equally for power and influence. Elections only give policy makers a limited idea of public opinion. Joining a pressure group demonstrates commitment to a cause and may give the group legitimacy with politicians. Some groups have memberships in the millions. Going on strike or marching in a demonstration indicates a higher level of commitment still.
Interest groups allow citizens to influence policy makers in between elections and they provide useful and relatively reliable information to them. Parliamentary processes provide opportunities for interest group activity. To remain influential though, groups must be non-confrontational and express their views responsibly and legally. However, there are clear inequalities in the ability of different groups to have an influence upon the decision-making process. Governments have a strong record of ignoring some groups, whilst others often have the ear of policy makers.
Elite groups find a way to buy political power and, according to the British political journalist Robert Peston, the voices of the super-wealthy are regularly listened to by politicians. Some groups have access to professional lobbyists and American academic, Charles Lindblom, expressed concerns about the privileged position of business. MPs and peers are able to accept jobs outside of Parliament and take money from well-funded interests. This has led to a succession of scandals and some restrictions on lobbying. Passage adapted from a report published in the 2018 Audit of UK democracy. Democratic Audit is an independent research unit based in the Government Department of the London School of Economics. Robert Peston is the political editor for ITV. Charles Lindblom was an academic in Economics and Politics.
ANSWER
The extract presents different arguments for the advantages and disadvantages of pressure groups in the UK, arguing they can both help and hinder democracy simultaneously. Both arguments are valid to an extent, however it can be argued that some of the weaknesses are inevitable in a pluralistic democracy, despite this we still need pressure groups. The source is from an independent democratic research audit at a top university, therefore they’re focussed ,arguably, on portraying the truth of the roles of pressure groups in the UK with limited meaningful bias.
A pluralistic democracy refers to the distribution of political power, which holds that power is widely and evenly dispersed in society rather than concentrated at the hands of the elite ruling class. The extract seemingly presents the view that elections never generate a holistic view of public opinion, this partly due to the fact we indirectly vote in the government and have no plausible way to express which parts of their manifesto you actually support, therefore giving us a limited idea of public opinion. Pressure groups therefore increase politicians knowledge of what the public want, it shows people’s “commitment to a cause” and the desire for change which can help influence policy making of politicians. On the one hand, it is a strength to show the public’s opinion and what they want for example, the pressure group Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust campaigned for the implementation of an immunisation programme to protect young women against cancer. This was later adopted in 2008, illustrating not only is it an advantage to let the public feel heard, they can also make a real change.
On the other hand, it is not always the case that pressure groups get to influence the government in this way. As the article later on states, different pressure groups get different privlidges in the decision making process. Due to the fact the roles played by interest groups cannot be said to be equal, this is an inherent weakness of pressure groups in the UK as for a true pluralistic democracy to be upheld there needs to be no elitist groups. However arguably there are, for example the outsider group Extinction Rebellion do not get anywhere near as much influence in policy making, as groups like the national trust. While it is mainly due to their persistent use of direct action that is often frowned upon, a lot of their aims are actually positive for society and so excluding them from policy making, and debate is arguably undemocratic in a system where all people should get a voice. It is also arguable that if they got a greater chance to be listened to maybe such extreme protests wouldn’t occur.
However as the article states, the government does allow for any group to be influential, provided they stick within their guidelines or being non confrontational and expressing their views legally, which Extinction Rebellion does not do. For example their tactic of mass arrests to fill up prison cells that occurred in October 2019 whereby, there were over 1800 arrests in a protest. We can clearly see other groups who abide by the simple rules of Parliament achieving their goals, despite not being very wealthy. This is a strength as it means elitism isn’t swaying or skewing the idea of pluralistic democracy in the UK. An example of this is the National Farmers Union, who has had visible success as a pressure group representing a wide scale of farmers including, small scale family owned farms. Just by looking at this one example, we can see the success they’ve had as a more limited pressure group, compared to others who may rely more on wealthy individuals and donors. In 2010 the NFU successfully got the EU to implement laws on mandatory labelling of food displaying a country of origin, in 2015 they sucessfully got our government to allow plant nursery’s to be exempt from business rates and recently, and in 2023 they ensured our government would give rural households additional energy help when they’re off grid. These are examples of just one pressure group, and how much they can get done for just their section of society even by not having wealthy donors or donating to governments directly.
On the other hand, the extract points out some pressure groups do just have the ear of the government, and can ignore others. For example, due to trade unions long-standing links with the Labour Party when they are in power, they often find it easy to influence policy and become an inside a group one with connections to government. Yet in our current political climate, they are often pushed out by Conservatives in power and find it hard to get their voices heard. This is a huge weakness as the public view It as governments picking and choosing pressure groups who are favourable to them, and not looking at what’s best for the majority. While it is unfair for the majority to make decisions for all, potentially leading to tyranny of the majority, by having only a small number of minority pressure groups close to government, and excluding trade unions due to ideological differences, you’re essentially letting 'the tail wag the dog.' Meaning letting minorities gain more undue influence, and not upholding the conditions of a pluralistic society.
However, it can be argued this weakness may not be purposefully done all the time. In a pluralistic society you can only get so many groups involved in government, before you run out of time and resources. It is impossible to represent every group in government. It is inevitable one will be left out, yet a stronger argument ,as pointed out by the article, is that elitist groups seem to be able to find a way to buy political power, with those being the voices listened to, therefore weakening our democratic system. This often needs to scandals with nothing arguably done about them. For example, after David Cameron left office he became a paid advisor for Greenstill Capital, with shares in the company, meaning if they did well financially so did he. Just before Covid lockdown he used his influence as Ex Prime Minister, to persuade the government to allow Greenstill to become part of a corporate Covid financing facility, enabling the company to make significant money and in return, himself too. He was criticised for using his influence to get financial gain which he arguably did. This means if corporations are wealthy enough, they can hire Ex MP’s or government members to lobby for them. This forming the issue of revolving door syndrome, where these MP's exploit their position for personal gain. This being a feasible option, makes public trust in government weaker, and the idea of a pluralistic democracy seems less relevant in our politics. As the article mentions, these succession of scandals has lead to restrictions on lobbying. For example the 2014 Lobbying Act, which anyone who is contacting a government minister on behalf of a third-party for payment, must be registered. Yet even this bill has serious limitations, that aren’t just inevitable of a pluralistic society, and they lead to completely undemocratic problems. For example the vast majority of lobbyist don’t fit under that definition, with only 4% estimated to be registered, with no limitations on gift giving and hospitality, which is often a mechanism used to influence. For example Helen Grant received Wimbledon tickets for £895 in order to gain her influence.
Overall, while it is arguable there are flaws within our system of pluralistic democracy, and there are deep issues that need solving these aren’t entrench problems, they can be solved. Pressure groups will always be needed in our society, and so long as we have places for people to be represented, we do have a reasonably good pluralistic democracy.
US 25 mark Question Example
"The US constitution is NOT fit for modern 21st Century." - Analyse and evaluate this statement.
The US constitution has developed over the last 200 years with a series of over 11,000 amendments being proposed, but a mere 27 actually ratified into the constitution, including the bill of rights, to fit the needs of society. Looking at the amount of amendments proposed and the ones actually ratified, show the first immediate issues in regards to the constitution being un fi.t The original document signed by the founding fathers was codified and fully entrenched, it was here on purpose that the founding fathers introduced the super majority, of a 2/3 majority in the senate and the House of Representatives and 3/4 majority of states needing to ratify an amendment for it to pass. The founding fathers believed it should be deliberately hard to amend the constitution so that it isn’t subject to fast and thought through irrational decisions, and to make sure that the constitution wouldn’t be taken over and would remain the highest law of the land. The super majority ensures the protection from dangerous amendments being passed, such as the Corwin amendment introduced shortly after the abolition of slavery, which proposed to protect slavery. The fact that the constitution has kept tyrannical leaders out of control, proves the constitution is still fit to do it's job in protecting citizens.
The amendment process was created to give an element of flexibility, but this relied on popular support from the people and Congress and it’s arguably too robust in modern day. One reason for this being, the last major formal amendment was over 50 years ago with many outdated, unclear concepts that still cannot suit modern society. For example the second amendment has arguably been taken too far, and doesn’t properly serve it's purpose anymore as it has led to many acts of violence, such as the Columbine high school shooting. Consequently, highlighting that there is a need for change as times have evolved and clearly it doesn’t quite suit modern society.
Many reasonable and helpful amendments to society have also been denied, such as the Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee protection against discrimination for women under the law. However this Bill failed to get the correct amount of ratification needed, and therefore was rejected. This meaning, that technically there is so no legal equality between men and women in the 21st century in America. Both of these examples show there is clearly an issue with how the Constitution is, even acts that would benefit millions of Americans cannot be passed. Although it was once created to stop tyrannical issues arising, it seems the constitution is now having an adverse effect and is now stopping the advancement of modern issues. Due to the super majority, it also means that America is often slow in acting on topical modern issues that need immediate attention. For example, during the 2019 coronavirus pandemic we saw a rise and 'rights culture' where Americans acted slowly in protecting themselves and others by not doing things like wearing masks. This was partially due to the fact it is not in the constitution, and is against their rights this took a toll on Americans response as it’s difficult to take fast measures with the constitution being so difficult to amend. We can see its issues more clearly when in comparison to the UK, as it was easy to pass legislation and have society wear masks as there is no rights culture and codified constitution. Therefore showing that the US constitution clearly isn’t suitable for modern day, and needs to be changed to fit the current issues arising.
Although many criticise the constitution for not evolving and being too vague, the vagueness of the constitution seen in terms such as the 'necessary and proper', clause and 'general welfare of the US', allows for flexibility and evolving interpretations ensuring the constitution stay relevant and fits in the 21st century. For example, The Right To Privacy Act has been made by the 1965 Griswold V Connecticut case, where this right prevented states from making the use of contraception by married couples are illegal. This was inferred by several amendments in the bill of rights in the constitution, therefore illustrating the constitution is written so that we are capable of using it. It also allows the Supreme Court to interpret it in a way that we can use it in separate situations, even though the wording of the constitution doesn’t make explicit. This shows that decisions can be made fairly to suit and keep up with the 21st century. More over, the Constitution has been amended to make the government more modern and in this way keep up with modern times. For example the 13th and 14th Amendment in the constitution, which stop the trade and abuse of slaves in 1913, and the 17th Amendment, which was appproved and became part of the constitution. It allows the direct election of senators where prior this, senators which chosen by state legislatures, this change was made due to increasing dissatisfaction with how senators were chosen. This proves when the public dissatisfied with the way things are they can still be changed and adapted to suit modern day.
On the other hand, the constitution arguably provides the judiciary withh too much power in making 'interpretive amendments' to the constitution. Therefore making it unsuitable for society where people want to be involved in decision-making, and not have an unelected members in the Supreme Court deciding what the constitution means. This due to the fact it may not be what the majority want or agree with. The Supreme Court has been accused of making rulings that the constitution makes no mention of. For example, the 2013 ruling to make gay marriage constitutional has faced a lot of criticism, as the constitution itself makes no mention of gay marriage and therefore it could be feared that, even though this was a positive advancement in the future, the Supreme Court may make unfair rulings due to the precedent this set. In this way the fact the constitution gives the judiciary so much democratic power is unfair, and doesn’t suit the 21st century.
The constitution was intended to be rewritten every so often, as one of the founding fathers Thomas Jefferson wrote "every constitution then and every law now naturally expires at the end of 19 years." He clearly envisioned it to be rewritten to keep up with modern times. Today we can see there is issues with the constitution such as the electoral college. Whereby, it is unfair that the winner of the popular vote is still not guaranteed presidency. For example the candidate vice president Al Gore won over 500,000 more votes and his opponent Bush, however because Bush received 271 electoral votes he became the president of the United States. This was and continues to be unfair and is a distorted reflection of the popular vote, and is therefore not fit for modern society. We can see further issues with the constitution as it hasn’t prevented a steady accumulation of power by the White House, and federal governors at the expense of states meaning states rights have undeniably diminished in the past century. For example federal legislation such as Obama Care which the states all had to follow. The US has also had an increasingly prevalent use of gridlock and partisanship. The constitution was designed to encourage co-operation between different branches of government, for example between Congress and the President however in 2019 during the longest government shutdown recorded this was not the case. Congress and President Trump were unwilling to compromise on Trump‘s request for $1 billion budget, to build a wall to prevent immigrants from crossing over from Mexico to the US illegally. This budget was denied by Congress and retaliation, Trump vetoed their budget. The idea of each branch of government unable to compromise, is completely against what the founding fathers originally wanted when they design the constitution.
Overall the constitution is not completely doing what it was designed to, in order to fit in modern society and therefore needs some changes to keep up with the 21st century and keep up with what the family fathers had originally envisioned in their mind. Now more than ever instead of having a united USA, the constitution hasled to a bigger division. Therefore, it cannot be said that the US constitution is fit for modern 21st Century society.
SOCIALISM EXTRACT
Each strand of socialist thought seeks a transformation in the economic structure of society. However, there is considerable disagreement amongst socialists over the means towards building a better alternative to capitalism. According to revolutionary socialists, the transformation of society lies in the hands of the proletariat. As a result of class consciousness, they will finally realise their shared common interest in the overhaul of an economic system built upon exploitation. After the short-lived creation of a dictatorship of the proletariat and the collapse of capitalism, class conflict will come to an end. Democratic socialists however endorse the parliamentary route towards a socialist system. By gaining an electoral mandate from the people, a socialist government could utilise a system based upon parliamentary sovereignty to implement a programme of nationalisation, centralisation, protectionism and co-operatives run by the workers. Such measures can be achieved on an evolutionary basis. In doing so, there is no need for the bloody revolution prescribed by Marxists. The democratic process therefore offers the most preferable route towards a socialist economic system. Social democrats endorse a far less radical approach. Those on the centre-left of the political spectrum advocate gradual and piecemeal tactics towards lasting social change. For instance, social democrats argue that paying workers a decent wage helps to raise productivity and reduce the number of hours lost due to staff absences.
Adapted from “This is a made up academic article about the divides within Socialism” by Professor Whodat of the University of Doesnotexist
Analyse, evaluate and compare the arguments in the above passage for and against the belief that socialism requires revolutionary change. 25 Marks.
The extract presents three different interpretations of socialism and what is required for change. Revsisonist socialists differ from fundamentalist socialists as they believe socialism can coexist with capitalism and doesn’t need a revolution to cultivate change, whereas some fundamentalist socialists believe we can only achieve that via revolution. Yet even within fundamentalist socialism, they have different beliefs in whether capitalism can be replaced via revolution or evolution. All can be argued to be equally able to reach their goals of socialism in different points in time under different political climates, yet in todays climate it is most likely that we do not hold a place for revolution.
For classical marxist as the article states, socialism, the necessary state, can only be achieved through the violent overthrow of capitalism. In Marx work ‘the communist manifesto’ he emphasises the idea our human nature has been contaminated by capitalism encouraging selfishness, ruthlessness and greed all leading to a ‘false consciousness.’ This essentially was the idea that we’ve been raised in a capitalist society and have become a product of it. Therefore revolutionary socialists support the idea this needs to be fixed, it is not our true human nature, and ‘we have nothing to lose but our chains’. The transformation lies within ‘the hands of the proletariat’ this because the class divide created via capitalism will always lead to oppression, instability and conflict, and therefore inevitably lead to a revolution of the workers. Marx believed that capitalism created a ‘surplus of value’ of the wealthy who paid their workers as little as possible creating the ‘seeds of capitalisms destruction’ by causing alienation, workers don’t feel part of the job because do not reap the rewards, and resentment, for revolutionist socialist the only outcome of this is an overthrow of that system, the working class proletariat will realise the power they hold when they work together. Once they revolt against capitalism they will create a dictatorship of the proletariat this state will slowly wither away and we’ll have achieved our socialist goals. Therefore revolution is essential to socialism. During Marx time this was a viable option where there were two distinct classes, bourgeousie and proletariat. A class consciousness could easily arise as workers were frequently exploited and alienated from their labour, however today we do not, as Anthony Crossland states, have such a binary society we have a middle class, and we don’t have a ruling or working class as a majority. Therefore there is no working class getting treated badly enough that they feel the need or physically can overpower the middle and upper classes, so essentially if the working class did have a violent revolution to try and overthrow capitalism it would immediately fail.
It can also be said we live in a society where through many labour reforms including the introduction of the NHS, we have created a society that is just good enough we don’t need to violently revolt, a violent revolt according to Marx stems from alienation however today we have increasing rights and less feelings of resentment toward capitalism. For example the BBC reported in 2024 1/5 of working age adults aren’t actively searching for a job, the highest level since 1970, during Marx time such an idea wouldn’t be possible because there was no state to fall back on like there is now therefore a violent revolution isn’t needed to change our society as we’ve already changed so much without revolution that people can rely on the state that much. It can also be said socialism might not require revolution in every political climate as Lenin discovered after adapting marxism to fit the climate of Russia which according to Marx was not ready, because did not have a successful capitalist society, he pushed the notion of socialism onto people creating a working class and forcing education about socialism on the masses, that Marx expected to develop naturally. Marxist Leninism eventually failed and the revolution did not result in true socialism, it can therefore be argued this was due to the fact Russia was not ready for the marxist ideas Lenin forced upon them, and this class consciousness needed to evolve on its own not via education camps. Reinforcing the idea that socialism potentially could have been reached via revolution following marxist classical ideas however due to the climate in which it was imposed it ultimately failed. As the article states democratic socialists take more of an evolutionary route towards socialism for example Beatrice Webb who believed that we could peacefully achieve our goals though gaining an ‘electoral mandate’ from the people. She coined the term the ‘inevitability of gradualism’ to refer to the gradual process of gaining a socialist society via more peaceful methods than Marx prescribed. Webb believed that capitalism was the cause of crippling poverty inequality and corrupted human nature and therefore needed to be replaced as paternalism or charity wasn’t sufficient enough to stop poverty. She believed that revolution will always fail or cause chaos and therefore gradual evolutionary socialism would be most effective. She believed we need to instead campaign peacefully to win public support and trust, and as your campaigning the working class majority would realise they have no vested interest in capitalism, similar to Marx class consciousness. This majority would therefore vote in a socialist government who in turn would start replacing private ownership with public and state ownership. The majority would see the progress we’ve made and keep re-electing democratic socialists and we’d eventually create a socialist society. This seems more viable as in a system like the UK who has parliamentary sovereignty which can easily implement socialist goals into their manifesto and law. Today we have a lot of socialist elements in our society that occurred through these evolutionary means and via the mandate from the public, for example the creation and sustainment of free education, however thinkers like Ralph Miliband have argued attempts at parlimtary socialism had failed, it was not effective in achieving true socialist goals as our socialist governments would always inevitably be blown off course by pro capitalist forces. It can also be argued that socialism can’t really require evolutionary change because as we’ve seen what it does is allow peoples lives to become better and see the change but then stop calling for so much change because we’ve got a lot of the change we wanted. We clearly haven’t kept on voting in democratic socialist governments therefore maybe in a climate where wed have a government which could forcefully push through these socialist regimes and keep being reelected by the public it may work, but today the majority are too well off to keep needing to majorly push socialist ideas. Instead, we vote for different parties based on different ideas for example, in the Brexit referendum we majorly voted to leave the EU even though our economic interest was to stay. It could also be argued that evolutionary socialism may not work to achieve socialist goals in any climates if it couldn’t work properly in the UK, where we have a hugely powerful government with the ability and powers to make socialism work and had a climate in which it began working but stopped how could it work in any other place.
Alternatively social democrat Bernstein, criticised early marxism and “immature” in the way it turned to violence too early and irrationally, and instead called for a ‘mature form of marxism’ that would allow peaceful reform, unlike the others he noted that the conditions of working class people were improving under capitalism, especially in Britain and Germany so came up with the alternative that actually capitalism properly directed by socialist governments could provide the best outcome by harnessing capitalisms strengths and control it’s worst elements. This idea was supported and added to by Anthony Crossland, who believed that Keynesian economics could be applied to properly manage capitalism avoiding it’s troughs but still gaining its benefits allowing us to focus on other forms of equality rather than just property ownership for example, educational equality which other forms of socialism had ignored. He therefore proposed a mixed economy with some elements of private property but with key services and industries owned by the state, he believed this was possible because for him at that point common ownership had gone far enough, as if we’ve achieved what we wanted from it and it wasn’t helping anymore it was now defunct. The idea of social democrats using ‘piecemeal tactics’ to create everlasting change is something we could see fit for our society for example, the text states that paying workers a decent wage helps to raise productivity and reduce the number of hours lost due to staff absences this is something that could counteract the amount of adults not searching for a job and those feeling disentivised. Therefore these tactics may be more useful than a revolution would be in achieving socialism today. However it can be argued this didn't happen and we’ve actually gone back to how it was before through privatising things like, the railway services and the steel and coal industries, and therefore today this isn’t as much of a viable option as it might’ve been previously, as wed probably need to revert to how that was before and create more industries funded by the state and therefore, maybe a revolution may be needed to help us revert back to that state and see the good we could achieve.
Overall it can be argued that neither revolution or evolution could work in the climates in which they were trialed and today maybe we need a compromise like the third way suggests with Anthony Giddens who explains capitalism is irreversible and we need to accept the powers of free market capitalism and recognise that capitalism was better in a system with strong social cohesion and therefore we need to compromise and reconcile Neo liberal economics with a socially democratic society, we potentially need to educate people so they can understand the benefits of socialism to them similar to Lenin’s idea but less forced and more at the will of people. Essentially we would need to change our society to one that is actually ready for socialist ideology
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