Business Lobby Groups in Multi-level Governance - A Case Study of Alter-EU - Research Paper Example

Interest groups for most scholars of politics are that it is a group that is autonomous to the government and political parties, which attempts to influence public policy.Interest groups are neither part of the government nor the political parties. They are autonomous and separate entities that seek to influence public policy by promoting their interests and advocacies. Consequently, they are part of civil society yet they try to become the link between the state and society. Thus, interest groups are integral to the aggregation of interests from the grass-roots level.

They organize the interests of different sectors in society and forward these aggregated stakes to the legislative system. Because of the mediating role of interest groups in public policy, these autonomous groups have important roles to play in a democratic society. They can advocate and strengthen a legislative agenda or they can interfere and weaken it.There are many types of interest groups that seek to influence public policy. There are those interest groups that seek to articulate the interests of their members.

Conversely, there are groups that articulate and advance ideas, values, and policies for the interest of the common good. Of the different types of interest groups, one kind of group that stands out from the rest is the business lobby group. It is an interest group that is highly organized in order to pressure legislators to promote their interests. These business lobby groups are not only groups that promote their interests but they are also organized groups that promote the interests of a certain private company or group of private companies.

Hence, they can either be composed of different companies or they can serve clients such as big companies. With these lobby groups, companies can promote their interests to the public legislators. Moreover, they attempt to impede the processing of policies that are detrimental to their interests, e.g. policies on environmental protection.