Introduction
Groups have attracted the inquisitive interests of assorted disciplines including Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Epidemiology, Education, Social work, Business, and Communication Studies. A great deal of these disciplines hold groups as the smallest unit of the society in such a manner that understanding the groups amounts to understanding the society. The most revered group theorist in Political Science, Arthur Bentley in his magnum opus, the Process of Government, along the thought that a group is the smallest unit of the society, forcefully reduced political phenomena to group dynamics, saying that "When groups are adequately stated, everything is stated. When I say everything I mean everything…,” (Bentley, 1908, p. 271). This statement goes a long way to show that the shortcut to studying political processes of a political system is squarely by studying the interactions between and among the groups.
This chapter discusses group dynamics in politics in which it believes that group dynamics is the system of behaviour and psychological processes of social groups. It established the meaning of a group and identified its types and distinguishing characteristics. It also discussed the Tuckman’s stages of group development. It promoted the Structural-functional analysis of Almond and Coleman as a veritable tool for understanding group dynamics in politics, especially as the approach vividly described the pattern of interactions between and among the identifiable groups or structures in a political system.
Meaning of Group
Defining group is quite a task owing to the amorphous nature of the concept. In its simplest terms, a group refers to two or more people who share a common meaning and evaluation of themselves and come together to achieve common goals. This informed Horn (2011, p.214) to define group as “an avenue through which group members experience mutual benefit.” According to BCcampus (n.d.), it is any collection of at least two people who interact with some frequency and who share a sense that their identity is somehow aligned with the group. The significant frequency of interaction and the mutually shared sense of identity are the distinguishing factors of a group from aggregates (e.g. crowd) and categories (e.g. teachers). There exist however, a very slim line between groups and aggregates, as well as categories. Instances abound where aggregates and categories turned groups. On 2 January, 2012, a socio-political protest movement known as Occupy Nigeria spontaneously began in Nigeria as a response to the removal of fuel subsidy on 1 January, 2012 by the Government of President Goodluck Jonathan. It prominently involved massive protests on the streets of Ojota, Lagos, and several other locations in the country. There were also civil resistance, strike actions, and online activism. Occupy Nigeria later turned a group that forcefully engaged governments in Nigeria since 2012. In a similar vein, categories such as teachers cannot easily be differentiated from teachers’ union which is a typical group. Generally speaking, a typical group is characterized by two or more persons, formal organisational structure, face-to-face interaction, common identity, fate and goal.
Types of Groups
Groups have been categorized in different ways. The sociologist, Charles Horton Cooley preferred that groups are broadly categorized into: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups (Cooley 1909). The ace sociologist described the primary groups as those that play the first and the most critical parts in our lives. They are usually small groups but they command stronger impression in the process of socialization. The primary group is usually made up of significant others—those individuals who have the most impact on our socialization. The best example of a primary group is the family. This is to be contrasted with the secondary groups which chiefly play larger but impersonal roles in the process of socialization. The roles of secondary groups are task-oriented. Example of secondary groups are schools and churches.
Going by formality, groups have also been broadly categorized into Formal Groups and Informal Groups. Formal groups are conscious creations for achieving a set of objectives while informal groups emerge spontaneously. Formal groups include:
1. Functional group: A group established by an organisation to perform a specific function within an unspecified time towards the realization of the organisational goals. A functional group is largely a permanent group in an organisation. Example: Accounts Department of an organisation.
2. Command group: This is a formal organisation hierarchically arranged to allow a free flow of command and obedience. A command group often consists of a supervisor and the subordinates that report to that supervisor. A very good example of command group is a university.
3. Task group: This is a time-bound group established to accomplish a specific goal for an organisation. The group ceases to exist upon the completion of the task assigned to it. An example of task group is an ad hoc committee.
These groups above are distinguished from the informal groups which include the following:
1. Reference group: This is real or imaginary group that serves as a standard for its members. Members use their reference groups for social comparison and social validation in which individual members compare their actions for conformity, and justify their actions and values, in that order. Family, peers, and religions are examples of reference groups.
2. Interest group: This group consists of members who may not necessarily belong to a department but they are bound together by a common interest. Students’ study group is an example of an interest group.
3. Friendship group: This group is formed by individuals who have similar passion for a given social, political or religious activities. They can meet after work hours to do what they love.
Group Dynamics in Politics
The role of groups in politics flaunts age-long recognition. Inquiries into the system of behaviours and psychological processes within a social group and between social groups, otherwise known as group dynamics are found in classic Western political thoughts. As a matter of fact:
The essential notion of the group, even as a claimant on the choices of governmental decision makers, is to be found in Plato and Aristotle. It appears and reappears in successive periods, especially when attention is focused on the classic problem of tensions between rulers and the ruled, the problem of the center versus the circumference, as Charles E. Merriam phrased it, whether in the restriction of the claims of the universal church, in the formation of the nation-state, or in the turbulence associated with the commercial and industrial revolutions (Gale, 2008, para. 4).
Be that as it may, group dynamics in politics has intragroup and intergroup dimensions. Intragroup dynamics (also referred to as ingroup, or within-group) are the underlying processes that give rise to a set of norms, roles, relations, and common goals that characterize a particular social group. The underlying processes in reference are simply the Bruce Tuckman’s four-stage model of group development which are:
Forming: This involves pretending to get on or get along with others. This stage is characterized by uncertainties.
Storming: This involves letting down the politeness barrier and trying to get down to the issues even if tempers flare up. This stage is characterized by intragroup conflicts.
Norming: This involves getting used to each other and developing trust and productivity. This stage is characterised by close relationships and cohesion.
Performing: This stage involves working in a group to a common goal on a highly efficient and cooperative basis. This stage is known as the zenith of group development when the group is fully functional. This is also the stage of intergroup relationships.
Adjourning: This stage is applicable to temporary groups. It is the stage for the dissolution of a group; the stage concerned with wrapping up activities rather than task performance.
The intergroup dimension of group dynamics begins with the performance stage. This stage involves beneficial or antagonistic interaction between social groups, and the intergroup interactions constitute the society. Hence, Georg Simmel (1858–1915) believes that “[s]ociety exists where a number of individuals enter into interaction” (1908). It follows therefore to mean that a groups are the bedrocks of the society, or as the case maybe, a political system. Little wonder Arthur Bentley declared that "When groups are adequately stated, everything is stated. When I say everything I mean everything…,” (Bentley, 1908, p. 271). The fascination that attracted scholars to study group dynamics is that:
In a group, individuals behave differently than they would if they were alone. They conform, they resist, they forge alliances, they cooperate, they betray, they organize, they defer gratification, they show respect, they expect obedience, they share, they manipulate, etc. Being in a group changes their behaviour and their abilities (BCcampus, para. 13).
Inquiries into group dynamics in politics has in the recent times favoured the functionalist perspective. The perspective is a broad view which concerns itself with how different parts or groups of society are interweaved, and the functions these parts play in the reproduction of the whole. The most influential example of this kind of effort is the work of Almond and his associates (Almond & Coleman 1960). The duo, in their work, the Politics of Developing Areas, identified four characteristics of the political system as follows:
· All political systems have political structures.
· All political systems perform some function to different extents using different structures.
· All political structures are multi-functional.
· All political systems are mixed systems (mixture of modern and traditional culture).
Accordingly, Almond argued that certain political functions existed in all political systems. Under the broad categories of input and output functions, he classified the functions of the seven identifiable structures of the approach. On the input category, he listed political socialization, political interest articulation, political interest aggregation, and political communication as the functions of family and/or schools, pressure groups, political parties and mass media respectively. Listed as outputs were rule-making, rule implementation, and rule adjudication; and which were listed as the functions of the legislature, executive and judiciary respectively. Other basic functions of all political systems included the conversion process, basic pattern maintenance, and various capabilities (distributive, symbolic, etc.).
The idea of the Structural-functional analysis is that there are a number of groups in the national political system (political parties, bureaucracies, the military, etc.) and that the actions and inactions of all these groups affect each other as well as the system. The political analyst must determine the importance of these groups in a particular political system, and this is done by analyzing the functions performed by the various groups. Thus, the study of groups in political system has become necessary given the findings that supported that groups are chief determinants of the political behaviour of members. For instance, a series of studies undertaken by Elton Mayo at Western Electric Company’s Hawthorne Works in Chicago between 1924 and 1932, observed among other things that group influences (norms) were significant in affecting individual behaviour.
Structural-functional analysis in this manner described above captured the intergroup dimension of group dynamics in politics. It delimited the process of interactions between and among the competing social groups in a political system in their spirited bids for relevance and survival of self in particular, and the system in general. The system of behaviour and psychological process of the groups are laid bare by the approach as it vividly shows that the function of a group dictates the group’s behaviour.
Conclusions
Groups are the basic units of the society to that extent that a proper understanding of the society must have to be by inquiry into group dynamics. The probe into group dynamics is akin if not the same thing with the statement of the nature and nurture of the groups. And in the argument put forward by Arthur Bentley, when the groups are adequately stated, everything is stated. Group dynamics in politics are vividly captured by Structural-functional analysis which identified structures and their functions in a political system. In this approach, Almond developed a set of structures and of functions and proposed a comparison of political systems in terms of the probabilities of performance of specified functions by specified structures in specified styles.
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References
BCcampus (n.d.). Introduction to Sociology – 1st Canadian Edition. Accessed online from https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter6-groups-and-organization/
Bentley, A. F. (1908). The Process of Government. USA: University of Chicago
Cooley, Charles Horton.1963 (1909). Social Organizations: A Study of the Larger Mind. New York: Shocken.
Gale, T. (2008). Political Group Analysis. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Accessed online from https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/political-group-analysis
Hogg, M. A.; Williams, K. D. (2000). From I to we: Social identity and the collective self. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. 4: 81–97. doi:10.1037/1089-2699.4.1.81
Horn, T. (2011) “Advances in Sport Psychology” Human Kinetics
Simmel, Georg. 1971 (1908). The problem of sociology. Pp. 23–27 in D. Levine (Ed.), Georg Simmel: On Individuality and Social Forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
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