Interpreting environments: Interest group response to population ecology pressures

Important articles in this Journal by Nownes in 2004 and Nownes and Lipinksi in 2005 demonstrate that 'population ecology' approaches are now central to interest group studies. Partly at least this move to study at population level is a consequence of the numbers of such organizations. Party scholars typically deal with far fewer cases and sui generis discussion is more defensible. Ecology seems to offer a handle on the thousands of cases that exist in the interest group field. Nownes and Lipinski stressed the importance of environmental factors in determining group populations, and challenged group scholars to address the dynamics among interest group populations. This article argues that animal-based population ecology may be an imperfect analogy to use in making sense of group circumstances. It considers the way groups respond to opportunities and constraints.