114 Pressure politics
Depression. It has been said of the AFBF that its support is necessary for the
success of any legislation relating to agriculture, and the Federation can, if it
wishes, put enormous pressure on Washington.
Public interest and cause groups
The 1960s and 1970s saw a remarkable change in the structure of interest
groups in the United States. As we have seen, hitherto most interest groups
had been representative of particular social or ethnic groupings, or had been
the spokesmen of business, labour or agriculture. A few organisations, such
as the League of Women Voters, had claimed to be concerned with the in-
terest of the public in general, or with promoting ‘good government’. In the
1960s, however, a large number of organisations sprang up whose aim was to
protect the consumer, to promote efficiency in government, and to protect
- or indeed to improve – the environment. One of the best known of these is
Common Cause, whose aim is ‘to change political structures so they will be
more responsive to social needs and to produce a major reordering of nation-
al priorities’. The Public Citizen Foundation is dedicated to the protection of
consumer interests, particularly by revealing safety defects in products. The
Izaak Walton League, the National Audubon Society and the Sierra Club
fight pollution and scrutinise construction projects to assess their impact on
the environment and to oppose those schemes that they consider to be harm-
ful.
A distinct but related development has been the growth of a number of
new groups devoted to furthering particular causes. A plethora of groups
promote women’s rights (including the unsuccessful attempt to obtain an
Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution). The National Organization
for Women works for the liberalisation of laws on abortion, and numerous
pro-life groups such as the National Right to Life Committee fight to restrict
or remove the availability of legally authorised abortions. Groups such as
Greenpeace, which oppose nuclear power, have been increasingly active, pres-
surising Congress and the administration and developing public campaigns to
mobilise opinion on their behalf, stimulating the formation of organisations,
the Nuclear Energy Institute for example, representing the interest of the
nuclear power industry. The development of the modern media of communi-
cation has enabled like-minded citizens across the country to collaborate on
matters of common interest in a way that would have been impossible even
thirty years earlier. The American Association of Retired People, with 35 mil-
lion members, has become one of the most formidable groups on the political
scene. The decline of the mass political parties as vehicles for policy develop-
ment reduced their function as a channel for the expression of concerned
public opinion. Public interest and cause groups have therefore become the
medium for the activities of those who in earlier times would have joined the
Progressive Movement or worked through the Democratic Party for the New
Deal. These groups have had considerable success in promoting improved