American Interest Group Research: Sorting Out Internal and External Perspectives

Abstract

Research on interest groups in America has developed from two major traditions, studies of group activity in the polity and analyses of groups' relations with their members. We argue that these two research streams focus on analytically distinct external and internal dimensions of interest group behaviour, and that the tendency to conflate these two dimensions has caused certain types of groups to be ignored or misunderstood. Categorizing groups on the basis of their internal life and external relations, we derive a two-dimensional framework from which to examine the present state of American interest group research.