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In Truman’s perspective, the governmental process is a mechanical bargaining process among competing interest groups. An interest group is a group of individuals with a shared attitude. When the interest group makes claim on other groups through the government, it becomes a political interest group. Its strategic position, its internal characteristics, and the governmental institution in question, in combination determine its access to the governmental system.

Voters are individuals, and they only act politically in groups, so they vote only when mobilized by the interest groups. Political leaders are representatives of their interest groups’ schemes. Society or the state is a sum of all the groups together without a unified interest, and it is held in place by a “potential” interest in liberty, property and freedom.

Political parties, as Truman argues, are no more than a loosely organized local election machine. Interest groups form the core of political parties. They dominate the organization of political parties by financing campaigns and mobilizing voters in elections. After winning elections they make claim on the political party in the form of favorable public policy.

Truman argues that as political power is widely diffused and secured with checks and balances, interest groups grasping for control of numerous governmental posts would result in a self-generating equilibrium across the political system. Even the Presidential power, with all its concentration and privilege, is placed in check by Supreme Court and Congress, which may very well be in the control of different hands. In Congress, power is diffused among committees’ chairmen and party leaders, who are likely to belong to conflicting interest groups. Not to mention the countless federal, state and local offices, each with its share of power.

Truman concludes that the way interest groups are competing with each other at diffused government access points is how government makes policies. Following this theory, an interest group with enormous economic power would go to its political party and help it win elections. It would leverage its resources in expanding the party’s influence through lobbying and advertising. Since people vote only when mobilized by interest groups, the political party affiliated with more powerful interest groups has a natural advantage in elections. Therefore, the economically powerful groups could gain political power quite easily.

Galbraith raises the concept of the countervailing power, where public interest groups develop to balance powerful private interest groups in politics. 

Among the basic mechanisms of the capitalist economy is competition as a self-generating check on the market power on each side of the market.

Economic power concentrated in the hands of few, however, is likely to eliminate competition and lead to collusion. The strong side of the market, by preempting entry and competition through exercising market power, could extract higher profits from the weak side. Concentration of power, on the other hand, also creates the need and potential benefits for the weak side to stick together. By forming a strong coalition, the previously weak side could now share in the market power of the strong side. Similar to competition, this process is a self-generating check on concentrated economic power.

Empirically, Galbraith observes that concentration of economic power tends to develop together on both sides of labor market. The rise of larger corporations is synchronized with the rise of strong unions. Most farmers do no have market power as suppliers to the grocery chain stores, and at the same time farming labor is very loosely organized. The necessity of labor to be well organized seems to depend on the market power of the industry. Strong unions develop to share in the industry’s concentrated market power.

Galbraith concludes that in promoting public welfare, the government is in the place to recognize concentration of political power and assist the development of countervailing power. In order to do so, it would be able to recruit public support because the disadvantaged groups tend to involve numerous voters. The established powerful groups, with no surprise, would resist vehemently against the building of the countervailing power. It is upon the government to figure out where and how to affirmatively support the development of the countervailing power.

Within the framework of Galbraith’s theory, economically powerful interest groups would seek to sabotage the efforts to build support of the countervailing power. They may do so by creating doubts in the public mind, as the tobacco industry did in showing advertisements where a doctor elegantly puffs a cigarette, in an effort to discredit a group of distinguished physicians, who were pushing for an official recognition of health risks by the government. They may do so by lobbying the Congress through well-financed lobbying groups, and during the past decade the business community has succeeded in various court cases, much in frustration of consumer interest groups like Public Citizen.

Schattschneider argues that pressure group politics and party politics have very different scope of conflict, thus the rule of the game differs. The group theory of politics, in its attempt to develop a universal theory, universalizes interest groups and oversimplifies their characteristics.

Schattschneider says that there is an established and distinguishable public interest, arguably in the rule of law and common values shared by the society. Public interest groups and private interest groups are very different in their missions and membership. A public interest group’s mission does not benefit its members exclusively, and membership itself is not exclusive. A private interest group’s mission mostly benefits its members exclusively and may be adverse to others. Public interest is so important that even powerful private groups appeal to the public interest. Private interest groups would discuss public policies in public terms, since a political conflict among interest groups could expand in scope and involve more parties than those immediately interested.

Schattschneider also says that there is an important distinction to be made between organized and unorganized groups. Discussing interest groups without making this distinction is make-believe defense of pressure politics as universal by wiping out the categories. Organized groups and unorganized groups vary widely in their importance and behaviors in politics.

 Schattschneider calls the organized special interest groups the pressure system. Those groups are by assumption among the most politically active groups. Organized interest groups have a political bias within themselves. Business organizations are predominant in numbers among all organized interest groups, since the business community is the most highly organized segment of society. It is not surprising that business interest groups have an upper-class bias. Statistics further show that not only the business organizations, non-business organizations also have an upper-class bias of participation. People with better education and higher income are more likely to participate in private organizations. The class bias of the pressure system reflects the limited scope of interests, since interests in the pressure system are not mobilized equally across social class. Also, aside from several large organizations, the rest of interest groups represent only a small segment of the population. The pluralist theory of interest group politics ignores the upper-class bias and limited scope of the pressure system, where most of the people cannot get in. Pressure groups are not very successful in mobilizing voters, precisely because of their limited scope of participation.

Schattschneider thinks that it is the political parties that mobilize interest groups, not vice versa. If interest groups directly involved in a conflict do not seek outside intervention, the conflict remains private, the balance of power fixed. The conflict becomes political only when the scope of conflict is expanded. Since political parties have very large scope where political conflicts could be socialized, pressure politics should be an integral part of party politics.

Schattschneider also points out that it is the loser in a private conflict that would seek to socialize the conflict, while the dominant group would resist such appeals and try to keep the conflict private, because the newcomers could dramatically tip the balance of power and change the outcome. Therefore the government could modify the outcome of a conflict by managing its scope. This perspective is consistent with Galbraith’s theory of countervailing power, where the process of building countervailing power is essentially that of socializing the conflict.

In Schattschneider’s theory, the economically powerful interest groups would achieve political power by negotiating terms with the political parties, who represent a very large scope of conflict. They have to appeal to the political party because only parties are capable of mobilizing large number of voters and winning elections. The political party’s attitude in advancing their special interests is what the interest groups could count on. The interest groups cannot dominate the organization of the political party because to win elections, the party has to appeal to the voters at large with policies sufficiently in the public interest. The political parties and the public are both checks on the interest groups’ political power.