Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T06:08:27.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Influencing Social Policy: The Effectiveness of the Poverty Lobby in Britain*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Paul Whiteley  and
Steve Winyard
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article looks at income maintenance pressure groups in Britain (the ‘poverty lobby’) and provides an assessment of their impact on policy in the 1970s. It is based on focused interviews with the leaders of 42 national pressure groups, MPs, Ministers, and senior civil servants. There is a discussion of conceptual and methodological problems involved in measuring effectiveness and a review of the theoretical literature on the role of pressure groups in the British political system. The study adopts a reputational approach to measuring effectiveness rather than a series of case studies. A number of specific successes are highlighted as well as examples of ‘agenda changing’ by groups. An explanation is provided in terms of the environment within which groups were operating, the strategies they adopted, and the resources they had available. The state of the economy was a particularly important factor in the 1970s as was the ability of groups to undertake joint action and form alliances with producer interests. The article concludes that the groups in the 1970s were influential rather than powerful and had more effect in the first part of the decade than at the end.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bachrach, P. and Baratz, M. (1970), Power and Poverty, Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Banting, K. (1979), Poverty, Politics and Policy, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, S. (1959), ‘Pressure groups and parties in Britain’, American Political Science Review, 50:1, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, S. (1965), Modern British Politics Faber, London.Google Scholar
Bell, R., Edwards, D. and Wagner, R. (1969), Political Power: A reader in theory and research, Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
Bentley, A. (1967), The Process of Government, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bull, D. (1980), ‘Open government and the review of supplementary benefits’, in Brown, M. and Baldwin, S. (eds), The Yearbook of Social Policy in Britain 1978,, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 22–56.Google Scholar
Child Benefits Now Campaign (1977), The Great Child Benefits Robbery, Child Benefits Now Campaign, London.Google Scholar
Cmnd 5629 (1974), Report of the Committee on One Parent Families, (The Finer Report), HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Coates, D. (1980), Labour in Power? Longman, London.Google Scholar
Coates, R. D. (1972), Teachers Unions and Interest Group Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Connell, C. F. and Kahn, R. L. (1953), ‘The collection of data by interviewing’ in Festinger, L. and Katz, D. (eds), Research Methods in the Behavioural Sciences, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, pp. 327–80.Google Scholar
Crenson, M. (1971), The Unpolitics of Air Pollution, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Dahl, R. A. (1961), Who Governs?, Yale University Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Donnison, D. (1982), The Politics of Poverty, Martin Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
Eckstein, H. (1960), Pressure Group Politics: The case of the BMA, George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Elks, L. (1974), The Wage Stop, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Field, F. (1972), ‘A pressure group for the poor’, in Bull, D. (ed.), Family Poverty, Duckworth, London, pp. 145–57.Google Scholar
Field, F. (1978), Children Worse off under Labour, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Field, F. (1982), Poverty and Politics, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Finer, S. E. (1973), ‘The Political Power of Organised Labour’, Government and Opposition, 8:4, 391–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, W. (1978), Insider Groups, Outsider Groups and Interest Group Strategies in Britain, University of Warwick, Department of Politics Working Paper No. 19.Google Scholar
Grant, W. and Marsh, D. (1977), The Confederation of British Industry, Hodder and Stoughton, London.Google Scholar
Hall, P., Land, H., Parker, R. and Webb, A. (1975), Change Choice and Conflict in Social Policy, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Heclo, H. and Wildavsky, A. (1974), The Private Government of Public Money, Macmillan, London.Google Scholar
House of Commons (1974), Social Security Provision for Chronically Sick and Disabled People, House of Commons Paper No. 276, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Kogan, M. (1975), Educational Policy-Making, George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Land, H. (1977), ‘The Child Benefit Fiasco’ in Jones, K. (ed.), The Yearbook of Social Policy in Britain 1976, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, pp. 116–31.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (1974), The administration of the wage stop, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Lister, R. (1975), Social Security: The case for reform, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Lukes, S. (1974), Power: A radical view, Macmillan, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacGregor, S. (1981), The Politics of Poverty, Longman, London.Google Scholar
Martin, R. (1977), The Sociology of Power, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London.Google Scholar
May, T. (1975), Trade Unions and Pressure Group Politics, Saxon House, Farnborough.Google Scholar
Merelman, R. M. (1968), ‘On the neo-elitist critique of community power’, American Political Science Review, 62:2, 451–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miliband, R. (1961), Parliamentary Socialism, George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Moran, M. (1981), ‘Finance Capital and Pressure Group Politics’, British Journal of Political Science, 11:4, 381–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
National Council for One Parent Families (1979), Annual Report 1979, NCOPF, London, p. 6.Google Scholar
Nettle, J. P. (1965), ‘Consensus or Elite Domination: The Case of Business’, Political Studies, 13:1, 22–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, K. (1979), ‘The Language and the Grammar of Political Power’, Political Studies, 27:4, 542–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, M. (1968), The Logic of Collective Action, Schoken Books, New York.Google Scholar
Oppenheim, A. N. (1966), Questionnaire Design and Attitude Measurement, Heinemann, London.Google Scholar
Paterson, P. E. (1970–1), ‘British Interest Group Theory Re-examined’, Comparative Politics, 3:1, 381–402.Google Scholar
Polsby, N. (1979), ‘Empirical Investigations of Mobilization of Bias in Community Power Research’, Political Studies, 27:4, 527–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pym, B. (1972), ‘Pressure Groups on Moral Issues’, Political Quarterly, 43:3, 317–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richardson, J. J. and Jordan, A. G. (1979), Governing under Pressure, Martin Robertson, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ryan, M. (1978), The Acceptable Pressure Group, Saxon House, Farnborough.Google Scholar
Scase, R. and Goffee, R. (1982), The Entrepreneurial Middle Class, Croom Helm, London.Google Scholar
Self, P. and Storing, H. (1962), The State and the Farmer, George Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Seyd, P. (1976), ‘The Child Poverty Action Group’, Political Quarterly, 47:2, 189–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary Benefits Commission (1978), Supplementary Benefits Commission Annual Report 1978, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Truman, D. B. (1951), The Governmental Process, Knopf, New York.Google Scholar
Walker, A., Ormerod, P. and Whitty, L. (1979), Abandoning Social Priorities, CPAG, London.Google Scholar
Walker, C. (1982), ‘Social Assistance: The Reality of Open Government’, Policy and Politics, 10:1, 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winkler, J. T. (1976), ‘Corporatism’, Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 17:1, 103–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrong, D. H. (1979), Power: Its Forms, Bases and Uses, Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar