Pressure groups/lobbyists, and petitions, civil disobedience all have some advantages and some disadvantages. There is sometimes better ways to do things.
A pressure group is a group that believes in change and tries to influence the government to make that change. They usually do this by appointing a lobbyist to argue for them. These can work really well when trying to change what happens in government because the lobbyists that get appointed often were former people in power so they have strong high up connections. They can fail however, because these pressure groups don’t actually make the decisions, so the government can just choose to ignore them all together. They also may lack the publicity that they need to actually make any change. This is where civil disobedience could help.
Civil disobedience is where you disobey the law or rule you are trying to protest. There are a couple principals to doing this. The first is you cant be violent about it or it could convey the wrong message and might alienate people from the cause you are fighting for. The second is that you take any punishment willingly and fully. They don’t seek to undermine the law – simply to repeal unjust laws. This way people are much more likely to notice what you’ve done because you’re actually breaking a law. One problem with civil disobedience is that you could just end up going to jail and they don’t look at the problem at all, so getting a petition signed could be your best bet.
Getting signatures for a petition is a great way to show people want change. A petition is where you suggest change and have people that agree with that change sign your petition. A few of the good things about petitions is that if you get enough signatures the government has to take a look at your suggestion. Again they really don’t have to do anything about it but they are required to task a group a people to look into it.
These are three of the ways that you can get change in the government and laws. None of these are guaranteed to work but if the government doesn’t listen to some serious concerns then it isn’t representing its people very well and that is a big problem.
