Public opinion articulated by interest groups:

Data analysis of surveys of voters, interest groups, and pressure groups

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to clarify the following 4 points: (1) To what extent are people organized? (2) How much bias is apparent in today's organizations? (3) To what extent have existing organizations approached politics? (4) Is there any structural bias? By comparative study of the data from surveys of voters, interest groups, and pressure groups in Japan, following observations can be made. The older generation is more organized than the younger. Organization is more developed in the profit sector. Interest articulated by new organizations is limited, while old organizations remain. It is therefore difficult to believe that the change of government in 2009 was due to interest group politics. Rather, at top level, interest group politics changed in response to the change of government. This suggests that group actions change easily, although in 2009, it was limited mainly to top level.