My use of the term 'pressure Group' was not intended to
insult. The term 'pressure group' is being used in its
political science context as being the equivalent of
the more American 'interest group'. I have found in my
reading that most European journals tend to use the
term 'pressure group' hence my use of the term on my
posting.( ie. the Swiss journal "Social Movements,
Pressure Groups, and Political Parties.)A pressure
group can be described as an organised group that does
not put up candidates for election, but seeks to
influence government policy or legislation. They can
also be described as interest groups, lobby groups or
protest groups. Some people avoid using the term
pressure group as it can inadvertently be interpreted
as meaning the groups use actual pressure to achieve
their aims, which does not necessarily happen. For
example in Britain, the number of political parties is
very small, whereas the number of pressure groups runs
into thousands; as the membership of political parties
has fallen, that of pressure groups has increased.
It is a term used frequently in the social movement
literature of political science and since that is my
discipline, I tend to use poli sci jargon. That was my
error as I did not take into consideration the variety
of perspectives in my 'audience' on the board. Again,
the term was not used to reflect negatively upon the
disability movement.
On a personal note: The driving force behind this
research project is the previous research I did while a
student at the University of Limerick where I was the
only Deaf student in my Masters programme and had to
fight constantly to get my needs met. Did I 'pressure'
UL to meet my needs, YES, constantly, consistently; and
was this pressure 'negative'. In the eyes of the
administration I would guess the answer would be YES,
but to the other Deaf students that followed me to UL;
they benefitted from my one woman pressure group and in
the end, so did UL as they now had the know-how and
facilities to accept Deaf students. Pressure can be a
very POSITIVE thing.
Were my demands selfish? To me absolutely no but I am
sure the university thought I was being unfair, after
all they were being forced to make a financial
commitment for what they saw as one student. Did I feel
guilty about my demands? Never... I paid the same
tuition as all of the other students, I met the same
qualifications and was entitled to equal access to all
of the university facilities.
I was attending UL just after the Treaty of Amsterdam
came into force and was curious to see if this would
open the door for disability legislation at the EU
level thus changing the paths to political influence
for disability groups. That is the origin of the
project.
I hope that clears the air. I would have responded more
quickly to your concerns had I not been out for
surgery.I do hope that people will be responsive to
this project.
Mairin
On Sun, 11 May 2003 09:43:43 -0400, Jim Davis wrote:
>
> Art,
>
> Yes, very astute to point out that one should aim the
> potent word
> "pressure" the other way, too. History which includes
> bias, and the
> status quo are of course the ultimate "pressure".
Thus
> half of what
> Ravich labels as "pressure groups" are (if we accept
> "pressure" a a
> term, for the moment) in fact counter-pressure groups.
>
> Re: Habermas -- I'm not clear on who you refer to as
> "...denying that
> 'interest' exists." Not me. People (who?) misusing
> the term "interest
> groups"? Of course "interest(s)" exist. Examples of
> anyone denying it,
> don't come to mind.
>
> Thanks for alerting me to Habermas' other term
> "emancipatory human
> interest". It's getting one step farther from my
focus
> (universal
> design, part of which in the way I deal with it is the
> historic/social/advocacy context in which it exists,
> part of which a I
> deal with it is about physical / built-environment
type
> "public space"
> (see my article touching on that in last August's
> "Ragged Edge" magazine
> www.raggededgemagazine.com , use their on-site search
> engine for the
> word "trade"), which is part of the more general term
> "pubic space",
> which sometimes overlaps with public sphere...) , but
> I'm interested in
> checking out Habermas' "emancipatory human interest"
> (groups?) term, if
> you could direct me to where it is in his writings, or
> in recent
> writings about him. I had found H's definitions of
> "public sphere",
> (which define it as (my words here) groups that send a
> message to the
> government -- never as groups with a message directed
> to society in
> general?) in a big anthology in a bookstore... it's a
> bit too far afield
> from my focus, for me to be able to buy books in this
> area. For the
> moment the only scholarly library I have access to is
a
> design library.
> A serious public library is for me, an hour away....
> for newer scholarly
> books I do have access to many good bookstores in the
> city.
>
> Universal design and "public space" in the
> three-dimensional sense of
> that term.... is for me sort of on the back burner of
> topics for me in
> recent years... (more primary for me have been -- UD
> definitions, status
> of this in society's built environment and education
of
> future
> designers, participatory advocacy & participatory
> design, how UD and
> accessibility / usability of the universal or
> non-universal type - plays
> out for better or worse in the real-world
architectural
> design /
> planning project management process, and grounding it
> in it's historic
> context of the DR movement)...... so I have been
> looking into "pubic
> space" but just collecting notes, resources and
various
> drafts of
> possible articles, to write something more on this
> maybe in a year.
>
> But this week I have had an invitation to propose a
> panel discussion in
> my area, for a non-design academic audience, and
> suddenly public space
> is off the back burner and moved to the front.
>
> ---> Does anyone on this list happen to know of any
> non-US examples of
> disabled groups mobilizing to influence the design of
> public space?
> Examples where the INITIATIVE came from the disabled
> organization are of
> particular interest, not just cases where some AB
> authorities too the
> initiative to call up a disabled group to serve on
some
> advisory
> committee. Though both types of cases are of great
> interest to me;
> one's rare, one's perhaps more rare. Or at least
> harder to find in
> research.
>
> --
>
> "Pressure groups" -- I think we should allow some
> leeway for the
> possibility that this term reads worse in US version
of
> english, that
> perhaps it might in the UK or other english-speaking
> places. In the US
> "pressure groups" is firmly established in popular
> speech as a
> pejorative, meaning and suggesting, approximately --
> selfish if not also
> mindless squabbling for it's own sake.
>
> In mainstream or mass media political discourse in the
> US, whether at
> the more pop end of the spectrum or at the more
serious
> or end -- a
> writer or pundit referring to a group or organization
> that she or he
> respects, would NEVER ever a call it a "pressure
> group". The term is
> almost synonymous with "selfishly going too far", and
> is reserved for
> use as a pejorative. Perhaps one coujld Lexis-Nexus
> search all 3 --
> pop-lite, pop-serious and scholarly journals in areas
> like public
> policy, if they have everything on-line, and find
> examples of how
> "pressure group" is most often used.
>
> I know if I received in the mail a survey questionaire
> about a study on
> "pressure groups", at any human rights
> activist/advocacy or civic
> organisation that I work in, I'd either throw it away
> as crank mail, or
> perhaps use it as an example of what sort of
> judgemental language we're
> up against.
>
> --
>
> But perhaps the mesage we're receiving here is that
the
> word is being
> redeemed a la some other originally stereotypical and
/
> or pejoriative
> labels such as black and gay? Can "Pressure Group and
> Proud" buttons be
> far behind? Perhaps one day I'll open the New Yorker
> magazine and there
> will be a cartoon of a cocktail party in which a guest
> is introducing
> herself by blithely saying "I work for a feminist
> pressure group", or
> someone is introducing himself by saying "I work for a
> pressure group
> called the Center for Constitutional Rights."
>
> --
>
> When someone scoffs at the negative cast of the term
> "pressure groups",
> my first curiosity would be to know if that person is
> in the stigmatised
> group in question. And if their economic and
> other-factors living
> situation is one in which they experience the kinds of
> stigma
> discrimination that the group in question is starting
> to organise to
> change.
>
> An interesting discussion....
>
> Jim
>
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Gallaudet University
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