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How Associations Relate to Political Parties

LJS Association Survey

Posted May 25, 2008

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Professional, business, religious and other associations formed that represent the interests of minorities will play a vital role in forestalling the establishment of a tyranny of the majority.

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The nation’s founders, after achieving freedom from monarchy, set themselves the task of creating a government subject to the will of its people, not to the will of a tyrant. To put control of the government into the hands of the people who are governed, they created a Democracy with two key provisions:

Elected government officials are – in bloodless revolutions – periodically swept from office, allowing the people to elect officials of their choosing to lead the nation.

Every minority in the nation – however small – has the right to assemble peaceably and speak freely, thereby having the opportunity to make their interests known to government officials.
In other words, people can exercise their right to be represented in the making of government decisions by voting and by joining associations.

Americans are diverse. They are represented by 1.5 million associations - roughly one for every 150 adults. Associations range widely in size from those with millions of members to many that are truly Lilliputian.

Even groups of substantial size – farmers, elderly, doctors, environmental activists, religious groups, and the like – are minorities without enough members to protect their interests and values simply by voting as a bloc. They must use other means to influence government action. While the largest groups wield substantial resources to make their wishes known (e.g., through advertising), the smallest have to be more creative. For example, the National Carousel Association and the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators both achieved prominent mention in New York Times stories (March 11 and April 2, 2008). In extreme cases, activist or terrorist groups resort to bombings or other acts of violence in their effort to influence the government.

To influence the government, associations often need to win support for their views from both the Democratic and the Republican parties. Affirming their role as an independent force, eight in ten (82%) associations in the LJS Association Survey deny favoring either the Republican or the Democratic Party. The 18% of associations that identify themselves as partisan include 11% that favor the Democratic and 7% that favor the Republican Party.

Associations are more divided ideologically than they are politically. Half of all association executives declare their organization to be either “conservative” (26%) or “liberal” (24%). The other half of association executives favors a “moderate” or “middle of the road” ideology.

The domains in which association executives would like to influence the government vary by political and ideological leanings. Association executives who declare their organization to be Democratic or Liberal tend to identify more policy areas as being “very important” to their interests than Republican and Conservative association executives do. This is seen in such policy areas as Civil Rights, Education, Health, Children/Families, Social Services, and the Environment. International Trade is the only policy area rated “very important” more often by Republican and Conservative association executives than Democratic and Liberal ones.

Click HERE to see statistics of association executives’ ratings of the importance of government involvement in each of 23 areas of public policy, by political and ideological leanings of the association.

To request more cross-tabulations data about this report and the survey, or to be kept informed about further findings from ongoing research on this topic, contact 8SAGES.com.

ALSO SEE THE TWO PRIOR ASSOCIATION REPORTS

Dimensions of Association Brands April 21, 2008

Associations Make Democratic Government Work March 27, 2008