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Changing Pressure-Group Politics: The Case of the Trades Union Congress, 1976–84

This Note presents a variety of new evidence on the paths and channels that one pressure group, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has used to influence or obstruct public policy in Britain over the last decade. Where is pressure applied? At what level? Which departments are most important? What is the role of tripartite organizations? How are policy positions communicated? In addition to these and similar questions the evidence permits a systematic examination of the impact made by a change in the party of government upon the structure of group-government interaction. Two contrasting patterns of interaction, which represent a rapid and sharp change coinciding with the change in government, are revealed. Government decisions themselves appear to be determinants of pressure-group influence and activities – even for a group with such a central position in British politics as the TUC – as well as the other way around; ‘Bentley on his head’ as Harry Eckstein puts it.