4. Pressure Groups and Political Parties

Pressure groups and political parties greatly resemble each other. Both of them are channels through which public can communicate with the government. Prima facie, both of them carry out representation, facilitate political participation and contribute to the policy process. However, in reality, groups and parties are very different from each other.

Conventionally, political parties are the bodies which are regarded as providing the way through which people’s interests are represented in the political system. They also function as a means of political communication, since individuals can express their own views to politicians by becoming members of political parties and can represent their party’s viewpoint to others in the community.

On the other hand, pressure groups can be seen as providing an additional form of representation within the political system and an additional channel of political communication. Some of the differences between Political parties and the pressure groups have been mentioned below: