Pressure for the Poor

The Poverty Lobby and Policy Making

Paul Whiteley, Stephen Winyard

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429881589
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Originally published in 1987 Pressure for the Poor looks at the debate surrounding the role of pressure groups in policy making. It closely relates theories of pressure group behaviour with the findings of research into the poverty lobby in the UK. The analysis is based on interviews with leading activists in more than forty interest groups, which are all concerned with trying to influence social security policies of government in the field of income maintenance. The book examines the origins and maintenance of such a wide range of interest groups in in this field, the strategies they pursue, and their impact on policy outcomes.

1

THE AIMS AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Poverty in Britain was rediscovered as a political issue in the mid-1960s. A series of reports and surveys shattered the widely held belief that the post-war ‘welfare state’ had abolished want. Central to this process was the work of a number of newly established pressure groups, in particular the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Disablement Income Group (DIG) and Shelter. They used the media to push the evidence of poverty before the public and the government. Their initial campaigning was highly effective and the Labour government, sensitive to the issue, committed itself to ‘urgent action’. The new high profile lobbying style of these groups, together with a relatively favourable political, economic and social environment, stimulated a rapid growth in the number of pressure groups concerned with poverty. Seventeen new groups were established in the period 1965–75, and they were joined by many of the long established ‘repectable’ social welfare organizations which started to exert pressure on the issue; together these groups comprise the poverty lobby.

It is arguably one of the most important lobbies in British politics for three reasons. First, ‘income maintenance’ is by far the largest area of public expenditure. In 1983–4 social security accounted for just under 30 per cent of total government spending; successes for the poverty lobby are thus potentially very large. Second, with well over three million members it is far bigger than any trade union or political party. It grew rapidly in the late 1960s and 1970s and achieved some spectacular success, although under the Thatcher governments it has faced an increasingly hostile environment. Third, the problem of poverty is a massive one and cannot be ignored by any government. In 1983, shortly before the Conservatives embarked upon a fundamental examination of the social security system, just under 9 million people in Britain were living on or below the state poverty line, one in six of the total population (DHSS, 1986).

Our aim is to combine the approaches of political science and social policy in the study of this lobby. On the one hand we look at how groups go about influencing income maintenance policy and what effects they have on outcomes. On the other, we draw out general conclusions about the origins and role of the poverty lobby in the political system, and what light the behaviour of groups throws on general questions concerning the nature of British politics. The analysis is based on interviews with leading members of more than forty interest groups, together with interviews with ministers, members of parliament and the key senior civil servants who administer the income support system inside the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The main interviews spanned the end of the 1974–9 Labour government and the start of the Thatcher era, although a small number of second round interviews were carried out with key members of the lobby in the mid-1980s. In addition one of the authors has worked with the Low Pay Unit and CPAG since the mid-1970s and has enjoyed something of a ‘participant observer status’.

In setting out on this research we aimed to fill a gap in both the political science and social policy literatures. In the former, work on interest groups falls readily into three categories. First, there have been a number of detailed studies of the activities of particular groups in specific policy areas (Dowse and Peel, 1965; Pym, 1972, 1974; Brookes and Richardson, 1975). Though interesting, many of these fail to draw any general conclusions about the role of pressure groups in British politics and society. Second, there are ideas about the nature and significance of pressure groups derived from ‘grand’ theories of politics and society, such as systems theory (Deutsch 1963; Easton 1965); structural-functionalism (Almond and Powell, 1966; Parsons 1967); and public choice (Buchanan and Tullock 1962; Olson 1968). This work is very often only tangentially related to empirical analysis, and can produce broad but often vacuous statements about the role of groups.

A third type of research in political science involves work which tries to link empirical analysis closely with theoretical discussion, to form what Merton (1964) has described as middle-range theory. In other words, empirical evidence is used to develop and test theories of group behaviour, or of the role of groups in British politics. Examples of these are the studies by Beer (1956, 1965), Eckstein (1960) and, more recently, Grant and Marsh (1977) on the Confederation of British Industry, Moran (1981) on the city and, at a rather more general level, Middlemas (1979) on the growth of corporatism, Wilson (1977) on interest groups and policy making, and Richardson and Jordan (1979) on pluralism and policy making.

In the social policy literature the main concern has been the analysis of case studies either of particular groups (Seyd, 1975; Ryan, 1978; McCarthy, 1986) or, more commonly, of particular policy decisions (Hall et al., 1975; Banting, 1979). Much insight can be gained from the case study approach, but such work can be a poor guide to answering more general questions about the impact and significance of groups for the political system as a whole. Particular decisions, or particular groups, may well be unrepresentative of decisions in general or groups as a whole. Thus case studies give only partial insight into the policy process.

We have tried to avoid the problems of the case study method by looking at the activities of many groups in relation to many issues. At the same time we aim to use empirical evidence to draw general conclusions about the poverty lobby and its role in British politics. We use the survey materials to address theoretical questions about the factors which explain the origins and effectiveness of groups, and about group strategies and tactics. This is, of course, not a comprehensive analysis of income maintenance policy making, but rather an analysis of the role of groups in decision making as both group activists and policy makers see it. As well as looking at groups in the social policy process we examine the size and composition of the poverty lobby, something which has not been done adequately to date in the existing literature.

The analysis is guided by existing theoretical accounts of the role and significance of interest groups in British politics. We begin the discussion, therefore, by reviewing debates about pressure groups in the policy-making process before going on to examine the wider questions of their place in the political system.

Interest groups and the policy process in Britain

The work on pressure groups in Britain has been strongly influenced by the theoretical framework devised by the American political scientists Samuel Beer (1956, 1965) and Harry Eckstein (1960). This is true largely because they were the first writers to study pressure group politics in Britain in any great detail. As Beer pointed out, the subject of pressure groups ‘has hardly been studied and most works on British government largely ignore it’ (1956, p.l).

Both writers were chiefly concerned with producer groups, but they did make reference to other types of group in the course of their discussions. Their model must be understood against the background of the stable two-party system of the 1950s, which was characterized by a high degree of consensus, combining the liberal toryism of R.A. Butler and the revisionist socialism of Hugh Gaitskell. This was the era of ‘Butskellism’. The Conservatives had largely accepted the welfare state as inaugurated by the post-war Labour government, and the Labour party had retreated from a heavy emphasis on nationalization and centralized economic planning.

This consensus politics had major implications for the nature of conflicts in British politics. First, it meant that interest groups operated in a generally favourable climate, not having to defend the basic principles underlying social welfare. Since the Conservative party had largely accepted the welfare state, political differences were over the size and range of benefits, not over their existence.

Second, consensus politics made the policy process primarily a matter of technical detail and administrative efficiency, since fundamental ideological differences did not exist. This in turn fostered and encouraged functional representation, i.e. the representation of individual interest by organized groups. In this environment such functional representation had become very important because most significant policy decisions were made in Whitehall, and not in parliament. The latter had been largely marginalized by the tight discipline of the party system. Eckstein argued:

Basically, it is always the interplay of governmental structure, activities and attitudes which determines the form of pressure group politics…. In Great Britain, at any rate, all three factors pull in a single direction: toward the concentration of pressure group activities on the administrative departments.

(1960, p. 17)

Here, the term ‘governmental structures’ refers primarily to the party system, which was disciplined enough to preclude the successful exertion of influence through MPs or party activists; ‘activities’ refers primarily to the large growth of social and economic policies which had shifted many functions to the bureaucracy; and, finally, ‘attitudes’ refers to a general sense among élite decision makers that pressure groups are a legitimate part of the policy process, and that it was therefore incumbent on the government of the day to consult them.

There were three broad reasons why the functional representation of interests in Whitehall had become important to the government. First, Whitehall required the specialist advice that only certain producer groups could provide. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture had to rely on the National Farmers Union for much of the information it required to determine the annual farm price support estimates. Second, Whitehall needed the acquiescence of certain groups in implementing policy. For example, the British Medical Association had wrung significant concessions from the Labour government at the time of the introduction of the National Health Service, when their threat to boycott the scheme undermined its viability. Third, for some types of policy Whitehall required the approval of the relevant interests in order to make policy effective. Thus in the numerous attempts to organize incomes policies, all governments have sought the co-operation of the Trades Union Congress. Such policies have had significant if limited success when trade unions co-operated, but when that co-operation was withdrawn the policy invariably collapsed.

Beer and Eckstein argued that these factors made for a highly organized and comprehensive system of producer groups in Britain which focused their attention on Whitehall and regarded parliament and the media as relatively unimportant. They argued that the successful producer group would have a relatively close day-to-day working relationship with Whitehall, characterized by regular communication and behind-the-scenes contacts. Such groups would positively avoid ostentatious publicity; indeed, a group forced into public campaigns would only be advertising its impotence in gaining access to the corridors of power. Thus Eckstein writes: ‘A group which simply does not have ready access to an executive department – which has no close clientèle relationship with such a department – may be driven willy-nilly to seek its aim through other channels’ (1960, p. 21).

Both writers observed that decisions made by governments were becoming increasingly specific, technical and managerial compared with general rules applicable to all citizens equally, which is the main characteristic of legislation. Thus they argued that the power of groups derives from the key fact that government cannot make specific regulations about transport plans, about price supports in agriculture, about resource allocation within the health service, without consulting the interests involved. If it does not, it is in grave danger of promoting a policy which cannot be implemented.

Both authors viewed pressure groups in Britain from an American perspective, and stressed the corporatist tradition of British politics, a tradition which regards the functional representation of interest in society as perfectly legitimate. They contrasted this with the United States where the individualistic tradition is much stronger.

We have stressed that Eckstein and Beer were mainly concerned with producer groups, but many of the points they made apply equally to non-producer groups. The latter supply specialist information to government, and are frequently consulted by government in the development of policy. However, they do lack the sanctions open to producer groups. This is particularly true of claimant groups in the social policy field. They may be able to embarrass governments but they are not really in a position to prevent or obstruct implementation and this makes them very much weaker than some of the producer groups.

Beer discussed non-producer groups under the heading of consumer groups, which includes welfare groups of the type in the poverty lobby. He stated: ‘By a consumer group I mean a number of voters whose material well-being is affected in the same way by some measure of government action, actual or prospective’ (1965, p. 344). He recognized that these consumer groups are a product of the vast, complex welfare state, and that the interests of consumer groups might well conflict with producer groups: ‘within the same household husband and wife may evaluate the same government action differently, the one as a wage earner applauding the rise in wages resulting from an expansionary policy, the other as a housewife deploring the rise in prices’ (1965, p. 345). Beer argued that the main sanction open to consumer groups is the electoral pressure to increase social benefits. The rise of Butskellism and the narrow electoral balance between the political parties had set the stage for a process of competitive bidding for electoral support between the political parties.

This analysis of pressure group politics in Britain very much reflects the consensus politics of the 1950s. It has, however, been criticized for ignoring the really fundamental class-based issues which lie under the surface in British politics. Peterson has argued that ‘Beer–Eckstein group theory implies that all issues are pluralist in character’, a proposition he strongly denies (1970–1, p. 385). Instead Peterson suggests that there are ‘status group’ issues, i.e. class issues which do not reflect the consensus orientation of pluralist politics. Peterson examined the issue of comprehensive education in three local authorities in Britain, showing that the implementation of the policy was far from being merely a question of technique and detail, but rather a matter of basic ideological disagreement.

Subsequent debates in political science have centred on the question of the role of pressure groups in the political system as a whole, and the inferences which can be drawn about this system from the analysis of group behaviour. From a neo-Marxist perspective, for example, Dearlove and Saunders (1984) criticized the pluralist model of politics underlying the Beer-Eckstein analysis for exaggerating the influence of groups in policy making. In their view pluralist writers in general make the mistake of focusing on the public arena, and ignore decisions emanating from the private sector. Thus the private market within the capitalist system constrains and restricts social welfare provision in ways not amenable to democratic influence.

A second point made by Dearlove and Saunders is that the interest group world is dominated by the needs of private capital, which creates an inherent bias in policy outcomes. By implication the poverty lobby is prevented from achieving any fundamental changes in the degree of inequality in society because of the constraints imposed by the capitalist system.

The pluralist model of interest group politics has also been attacked from the perspective of the new right. For example, Brittan (1975, 1977) argues that pluralist democracy is fundamentally flawed since it encourages groups to make ever-increasing demands on the system, to the point where it becomes overloaded. King (1975) makes a similar point, contending that pluralism contains a basic flaw, the lack of any direct link between the costs and benefits of state action. Thus groups seek benefits for themselves or their clients, and disregard the social costs of these demands because such costs can be distributed throughout society as a whole. In this view it is rational for all groups to ask for more, without paying much attention to the costs involved. Brittan feels that this could eventually destroy the system. In a revision of his earlier work on British politics Beer (1982) comes to similar conclusions.

Another debate about pressure groups and the policy process arises from the work of the corporatist theorists. The term corporatism is rather ambiguous and has been used in different ways by different writers (see Lehmbruch and Schmitter, 1982). The essential idea is that corporatism denotes a process by which the government and producer groups co-operate at the leadership levels. In exchange for legal, economic and social benefits, trade unionists support wage restraint and discipline their own membership to ensure that agreements are sustained (Cameron, 1984; Crouch, 1985). Similarly, management and employers deliver price restraint in exchange for wage restraint and access to decision making on economic and social policy. This creates a system of tripartite concertation, and the evidence suggests that countries which have achieved this, such as Austria, Germany and Sweden, have faster economic growth and lower rates of inflation and unemployment than countries which have not (Schmidt, 1982; Whiteley, 1986b).

In an influential historical account Middlemas (1975) claims that the British political system has been moving in the direction of corporatism since the early part of this century. This was certainly true during the Labour government of 1974–9 which clearly tried to formalize a corporatist relationship with the trade unions after 1976, in the form of the social contract. The social contract collapsed in the winter of 1978–9 and the subsequent Conservative government has been ideologically hostile to such ideas. Thus it is not clear how corporatist the contemporary British political system is, let alone whether or not the poverty lobby can participate in tripartism.

Corporatism assumes the existence of a strong, disciplined and hierarchically organized system of producer groups, together with a st...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The aims and scope of the study
• 2 Defining the poverty lobby
• 3 The origins of the poverty lobby
• 4 The policy environment of the poverty lobby
• 5 The strategies and tactics of group influence
• 6 The effectiveness of the poverty lobby
• 7 The future of the poverty lobby
• Bibliography
• Abbreviations
• Index