Interest groups are often defined by academics as organised, non-public groups that intentionally attempt to influence public policy.
Within this category, interest groups are differentiated on particular policy domains according to the type of interests they represent, their position in relation to government institutions and their openness to public participation.
These distinctions will be used to attempt to organise the differences in interest group definitions in the subsequent institutional analysis.
The purpose of using a framework of definitional elements is twofold: first is to attempt to preserve a focus on interests rather than the forms those interests take; second is to more systematically identify elements of particular interest to New Zealand. Given that there is likely to be a difference between the purposes of academic and regulatory definitions, a catchall category of ‘other distinctions’ has been included.
The analytical framework can be seen in Table 2.
Table 2: Interest Group Definitional Elements
| Country | ||||||
| Australia | USA | Canada | Germany | UK | ||
| Organised/Disorganised | ||||||
| Definitional | Intending/Unintending | |||||
| Element | Sectional/Promotional | |||||
| Insider/Outsider | ||||||
| Open/Closed | ||||||
| Other Distinctions |
