Abstract
Certain interest groups are often depicted as pursuing only their self-interest. They are supposed to "push government to enact policies that benefit small constituencies at the expense of the general public". These criticisms lead to the creation of a new word: lobbying, which designates the attempts made by policymakers to influence policymakers. That perhaps explains why the excessive power of interest groups is very often feared. The last example of this kind of fear is the book by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. In this book, the two scholars argue that the Iraq war and other decisions made by the Bush administration were decided because of pressure by the Israel lobby and that these decisions were against the general interest of the United States. Furthermore, interest groups "have increased in visibility these forty last years, whereas the parties have declined in importance". Therefore, the study of interest groups is especially interesting today and we will see more of them in this document.
