Beyond the politics of interest

Most political theorists share the basic assumption that the pursuit of self-interest lies at the heart of political behaviour. In consequence, theoretical approaches in political analysis, diverse though they may be, can all be assembled under one rubric — the politics of interest. In this perspective, the political realm is seen as an arena into which individual or group interests enter in some fashion, to be dealt with by certain processes and to be transformed into outcomes, policies or outputs.1 This notion of political processes treats political society, not as a single entity—a community—but as fragmented into groups that are distinguished by their respective interests. On this view, groups and their interests constitute the essence of politics, providing the conceptual terms in which political behaviour is to be explained