This is Jeff Berry. The subject of interest groups, the topic of the previous Chapter 10, connects nicely with Congress, the subject of this chapter, Chapter 11. A central part of the study of Congress is the way that interest groups interact with legislators. Interest groups push legislators to adopt policies that favor what those organizations' members want. Legislators must think about those views along with many other considerations: what they personally feel is in the best interests of the United States; what independent research suggests; what the leaders of their congressional party prefer; and what the President may be recommending. Should legislators also think about what their constituents want?

This interplay of interest groups with Congress is set against a larger backdrop in The Challenge of Democracy. Recall that Chapter 2 offers two contrasting models of democracy. Pluralist democracy is a form of government that depends heavily on interest group participation in policymaking, allowing different sectors of society to have their voices heard by those in government. Different interests are aggregated into different organizations: farmers into farm groups; workers into labor unions; and so on.

The other theory of democracy put forward is majoritarianism. This model relies on election results and public opinion. Instead of formulating policy based on the demands and preferences of individual lobbying groups, a majoritarian system should facilitate the enactment of policies favored by the majority of citizens. In this model strong, unified political parties within the Congress offer distinct programs to voters. Then, in each election, voters make a collective choice, giving either the conservative Republicans or more liberal Democrats a majority. In majoritarian theory at least, the party winning the most seats would enact its platform of policy proposals that it ran on in the previous election.

The American Congress contains elements of both pluralism and majoritarianism. As you read through Chapter 11 keep these two theories in mind and try to distinguish which features of the Congress favor pluralist policymaking and which favor majoritarianism