Pressure groups
Contents: 7 sections
What a pressure group is
A pressure group is an organised group of people who share a concern and work together to persuade businesses or governments to change what they do. They may campaign on the environment, on working conditions, on animal welfare, on health, or on a single local issue such as a new road through a village.
A pressure group owns nothing, employs nobody at the business and has no vote in it. Its power is entirely borrowed: it works by changing the behaviour of people the business does depend on, which is customers, employees, investors, lenders, large buyers and the government. Every method below is an attempt to reach one of those groups.
That is the sentence to get into an answer early, because it turns a list of protests into an explanation of why a business takes any notice.
The methods they use
| Method | How it reaches the business |
|---|---|
| Publicity and media campaigns | Newspaper and television coverage puts the issue in front of customers who were not looking for it, and damages the brand the business has paid to build |
| Boycotts | Customers are asked to stop buying, so revenue falls directly and the business can measure the cost |
| Lobbying government | Persuades politicians and regulators to change the law, which forces every business in the industry rather than one |
| Protests at sites | Blocking a gate or occupying land halts deliveries and construction, so a project runs late and costs more |
| Protests at shareholder meetings | Campaigners buy a small number of shares to get in, then raise the issue in front of the owners and the press |
| Social media | Cheap, fast and hard to control. A single post can reach more people in a day than a year of leaflets, and it stays searchable |
| Petitions and legal challenges | Show the weight of opinion, or delay a project through the courts while costs mount |
What decides whether they succeed
Two campaigns using the same methods can end very differently, and this is where the evaluation marks are.
- Size and public support. A group of thousands with the public behind it is harder to ignore than a dozen people at a gate.
- Media attention. A campaign nobody reports has almost no effect, which is why so much effort goes into images and stunts rather than arguments.
- How exposed the business is to consumer opinion. A well-known consumer brand can lose sales overnight. A business selling components to other factories is judged on price, quality and reliability, so a boycott has little to aim at, although its large customers may still ask questions.
- Whether customers have somewhere else to go. A boycott only bites where a close substitute exists. Where the business is the only supplier in the area, customers keep buying whatever they think.
- The cost of the change being demanded. Switching to different packaging is cheap enough to concede. Abandoning a factory the business has already half built is not.
- Whether the group has one clear demand. A campaign asking for a single specific change is far easier to settle than one objecting in general.
- Whether the law is moving the same way. A group pushing at a door the government is already opening usually wins.
How a business responds
| Response | When it makes sense | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Ignore the campaign | The group is small, unreported, and the demand is expensive | If coverage grows, the business looks as though it was hiding |
| Meet and negotiate | The demand is partly reasonable and the business wants the story to end | Concede once and other groups take note |
| Change the decision | The cost of changing is less than the sales and reputation at risk | Money already spent on the original plan is lost |
| Put its own case publicly | The business has facts on its side, such as the jobs a project creates | An argument in public keeps the story alive |
| Lobby government itself | The real battle is over a proposed law | Slow, and visible if it is discovered |
| Consult the community first | Before the project starts, at planning stage | Costs time, and raises objections that might not have surfaced |
The decisions pressure groups actually change are recognisable: a supplier dropped, a product reformulated or withdrawn, a site moved, a project delayed while costs run, packaging changed, wages or working conditions improved, a report published that the business would rather not have published.
Writing the answer
A 6-mark part asks you to explain how a pressure group might affect a named business, and each way is worth three marks along one chain.
The group organises a boycott. [k] Its customers are families who read about the campaign in the local paper, so sales at the two town centre stores fall. [app] With lower revenue the business may have to delay the refit it had planned. [an]
An 8-mark part asks whether the business should give in. The unjustified answer lists what the group might do. The justified one weighs it: how much revenue is genuinely at risk, whether the campaign will still be running in three months, what the change would cost, and whether conceding settles the issue or invites the next demand. Say which of those matters most for this business, and say why.
Common mistakes
- Describing a pressure group as part of the business, or as a government body. It is neither.
- Confusing a pressure group with a trade union. A union represents employees over pay and conditions at their own employer; a pressure group campaigns on an issue from outside.
- Listing methods without saying what any of them does to the business's sales, costs or reputation.
- Assuming every campaign works. Size, media coverage and how exposed the business is to consumer opinion all decide the outcome.
- Saying a boycott always cuts sales, when the business sells to other businesses rather than to the public.
- Treating the response as automatic. Ignoring the campaign is a real option and is often the one taken.
- Answering an 8-mark part with what the group did, instead of judging whether the business should change its decision.
What the syllabus asks for on this topicSyllabus points
Syllabus points
- Explain how pressure groups can influence business decisions.
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