¹ I have used the term ‘interest group’ rather than ‘pressure group’ throughout. The general consensus of academic opinion would appear to be that ‘interest group’ is the more appropriate term for organizations like the CBI. See Wootton, G., Interest-Croups (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970).Google Scholar

² See Olson, M. Jr., The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).Google Scholar All references are to the paperback edition published by Schocken Books, New York, 1968. See also Frohlich, N., Oppenheimer, J. and Young, O., Political Leadership and Collective Goods (Princelon: Princeton University Press, 1971).Google Scholar The most relevant statements of the pluralists' position are to be found in Bentley, A. F., The Process of Government (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967, first published 1908)Google Scholar; Truman, David B., The Governmental Process: Political Interests and Public Opinion (New York: Knopf, 1952)Google Scholar and Latham, Earl, The Group Basis of Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1952).Google Scholar

³ The study obviously deals mainly with a consideration of the role of the CBI as an interest group in British politics. Grant, W. and Marsh, D., The Confederation of British Industry (London: University of London Press, 1976).Google Scholar

⁴ As Brian Barry says more generally. ‘The powerful attraction which economics holds for the other social sciences is not hard to understand… since it has for so long possessed a MARSH theoretical structure much more impressive than theirs.’ Barry, Brian, Sociologists, Economists and Democracy (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1970), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

⁵ See Salisbury, R. H., ‘An Exchange Theory of Interest Groups’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, 1 (1969), 1–32, esp. pp. 4–5.Google Scholar Indeed it is crucial to the pluralists' conception that individuals with latent common interests can at any time form an actual association if their interests are threatened. If they don't assume this to be so then existing strong associations might dominate the polity. The pluralists thus stress the ease of establishing a formal organization and ignore the problems of the incentives necessary to encourage people to actually form such an association.

⁶ To the economist the two key variables which distinguish public goods are that they are non-rival and non-excludable. These characteristics are lucidly discussed by Peston, M., Public Goods and the Public Sector (London: Macmillan, 1972).Google Scholar A collective good is defined by Olson as ‘Any good such that if any person x₁ in a (potential) group, x₁,…, x₂,…, x_n consumes it, it cannot feasibly be withheld (from other eligible members of the association)’. Olson, , ‘Logic of Collective Action’, p. 14.Google Scholar

⁷ Olson, , Logic of Collective Action, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

⁸ Olson, , Logic of Collective Action, p. 132.Google Scholar

⁹ Olson, , Logic of Collective Action, p. 135.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Grant, and Marsh, , Confederation of British Industry, Chap. 2.Google Scholar

¹¹ Dexter, L. A., Elite and Specialized Interviewing (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. 1970), p. 39.Google Scholar

¹² It is generally recognized that there are special problems in interviewing ‘elite’ groups such as business. Kincaid and Bright maintain that ‘To a greater extent than is probably the case in most types of interviewing, interviews with the business elite must be flexible. It is more sensible – indeed often inescapable – to shape the interview around the respondent rather than conduct it in a certain specified manner’. We didn't use a simple questionnaire in our interviews with CBI members but simply had a list of topics which we pursued in an open-ended discussion. Although we found that this technique had many advantages, it does present problems about the comparability of responses; see Kincaid, H. V. and Bright, M., ‘Interviewing the Business Elite’, American Journal of Sociology, LXIII (1957), 304–11, p. 309.Google Scholar

¹³ The role of the nationalized industries in the CBI is dealt with at some length in Grant, and Marsh, , Confederation of British Industry.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Subscriptions have since been substantially increased. The old system discriminated against labour-intensive industries; the new system will base subscriptions on a member's total United Kingdom salary and wages bill and its United Kingdom turnover. Some firms faced subscription increases of between 300 per cent and 400 per cent. Many of them were not too happy about this development.

¹⁵ See The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Industrial and Commercial Representatives, chairman. Lord Devlin (London: Association of British Chambers of Commerce and Confederation of British Industry, 1973), p. 76, paras. 342–3.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See SirKipping, N., Summing Up (London: Hutchinson. 1970), pp. 227–8.Google Scholar

¹⁷ One respondent commented, ‘We pay even larger subscriptions to SMMT than to CBI. We are members of SMMT because otherwise you can't participate in the annual motor show.’

¹⁸ Although, of course, in decision-making theory even optimal decisions may be made under different conditions, known as conditions of certainty, conditions of risk and conditions of uncertainty. This distinction is lucidly developed by Watkins, John, ‘Imperfect Rationality’ in Berger, R. and Cioffi, F., eds., Explanation in the Behavioural Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 167–217, see especially pp. 179–96.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Watkins, , ‘Imperfect Rationality’, p. 206.Google Scholar

²⁰ Watkins, , ‘Imperfect Rationality’, p. 208.Google Scholar

²¹ Olson, , Logic of Collective Action, pp. 37–43.Google Scholar

²² Frohlich, , Oppenheimer, and Young, , Political Leadership and Collective Goods, Chap. 1.Google Scholar

²³ A similar point is made concerning the ‘cost’ of voting by Brian Barry in his extremely useful critique of Downs, in Barry, , Sociologists, Economists and Democracy.Google Scholar

²⁴ Olson, , The Logic of Collective Action, p. 160.Google Scholar

²⁵ Olson, , The Logic of Collective Action, pp. 33–6Google Scholar