Pressure groups play an important part in the current political system in that it is these organisations who attempt to influence public opinion and shape policy in relation to a particular issue. Pressure groups are associations that may be formal or informal whose purpose is to further the interests of a specific section of society or to promote a certain cause. Democracy is the idea that the people’s views are represented. There has been the argument of whether pressure groups enhance or do not enhance democracy in a country. Pressure groups can be seen as being undemocratic since pressure groups are unelected and unrepresentative. This can be seen in the way in which the leaders or officers are appointed. This is because, unlike conventional politicians, pressure group leaders are not elected, and as a result, many people believe that pressure groups do not put forward the views of all of their members and thus can make a decision without getting the entire group’s backing. Pressure groups are therefore not publicly accountable which means that the influence they exert is not democratically legitimate or that pressure groups may not represent their members fully. Trade unions have often been criticised for this, particularly in the 1980s. Thus, due to pressure groups being unelected and unrepresentative of the people, this can be seen as a threat to democracy. Another way that pressure groups can be a threat to democracy is that decision makers have their own political agenda. Politicians usually have their own agenda and ideas which leads to pressure groups being unlikely to gain any power or influence if their ideas do not conform. In practice, the most powerful pressure groups tend to be the ones that posses money, expertise, institutional leverage and privileged links to government. Two examples are CND who had 250,000 which was deemed unsucessful and during the Iraq war protests where 1 million people protested and was unsucessful as well. Pressure groups can also be seen as undemocratic in the way that pressure groups disguise the true nature of power. Regardless of which groups are the most powerful, pressure group influence is exerted in a way that is not subject to scrutiny and public accountability. Pressure groups usually exert influence ‘behind close doors’ which means that the true nature of power is hence disguised. This particularly applies in the case of insider groups, whose representatives are unseen by the public and away from media scrutiny. On the other hand, pressure groups can also enhance democracy. In the pluralist model of democracy, pressure groups play an essential role. Political parties cannot provide adequate representation for the full range of diverse interests and opinions in a modern democracy because their key function is to aggregate interests into a coherent political entity capable of governing the country. Pressure groups enable particular interests and causes to be heard and to exert influence in public decision and decision-making. Yet it is precisely the representation of specialist interests and of single issues which may give cause for concern, both in terms of the methods used to achieve objectives and of the undue power and influence which particular lobbies can exert. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents provided the Government with information when deciding the law on wearing seatbelts in the back of cars. Another way pressure groups can enhance democracy is that they promote politicall debate, discussion and argument. They create a better-informed and more educated electorate. This, in turn, helps to improve the quality of public policy. Without pressure groups, the public and the media would have to rely on a relatively narrow range of political views, those expressed by the government of the day and a small number of major parties. Pressure groups also challenge established views and conventional wisdom as they offer alternative viewpoints and widen the information available to the public, especially through their access to the mass media and the use of new communications technology such as the Internet. Hence, pressure groups raise the quality of public debate by introducing specialist knowledge and greater expertise. Pressure groups are also good for democracy, in that they allow people to put their views forward to the government, although this does not always influence the governments decision. Thousands of people turned up for the Stop the War Coalition, although the government still went ahead with the war in Iraq. This was not a successful protest, but if pressure groups did not exist, people would have had to wait 2 years before putting their point forward in the next election.

In conclusion, it can be concluded that although pressure groups and their features do play a coherent role to promote and enhance democracy as they raise the public awareness and provide direct opportunities to participate, pressure groups on the other hand can allow too much influence over the government from un-elected extremist minority groups, which in turn could lead to unpopular consequences. Thus, pressure groups can both enhance and not enhance democracy in the UK.