Political Groups in Latin America

I feel it necessary to begin with an attempt to define the term “political group” as used in this paper: it is a system of patterned or regular interaction among a number of individuals. The interaction is sufficiently patterned to permit the system to be viewed as a unit, and the action of the unit is directed toward some phase of the operation of government. Every political group has an interest. This is simply the central and continuing type of activity that gives the group its property as a system or a unit. Interest, then, is consistent with the observed pattern of interaction, and not contrary to it. “The interest and the group are the same phenomenon observed from slightly different positions, and an ‘interest group’ is a tautological expression. The interest is not a thing that exists apart from the activity or that controls activity.”