As we saw in the introduction, the pluralist model of the associational order implies autonomous organization based on the volunteer involvement of the participants, with a professional staff merely serving the function of organizational maintenance. This conception of group dynamics was contrasted with the model postulated by exchange theory, in which associational activity is conceived in terms of the relationship between the professional leadership of the group offering benefits to a clientele in return for membership. Group leaders are thus seen as political entrepreneurs, and association is reinterpreted as a type of business activity, its defining characteristic being the essentially commercial relations between the group and its members. If, as we saw in the previous chapter, the decision to subscribe to an interest group is governed by instrumental cost–benefit calculations, the willingness to participate in organizational activity is likely to be lower than where membership motivations revolve around the solidary incentives associated with group identification. Group dynamics are thus likely to be characterized by mass passivity and professional domination, taking the form of the loosely coupled exchange relationship of the entrepreneurial model rather than the pluralist ideal of autonomous associational activity.

Empirical studies of the internal life of interest groups in the post-communist societies of east/central Europe are scarce, but what evidence there is supports the expectations outlined above. Trade union activity is strongly marked by the syndrome of mass passivity and elite domination.