The scope and bias of the pressure system do not fit easily into the calculus of party politics. First, the pressure system is much too small to play… - Elmer Eric Schattschneider

The attack on politics, politicians and political parties and the praise of nonpartisanship are significant in terms of the control of the scale of conflict. One-party systems, as an aspect of sharply sectional party alignments, have been notoriously useful instruments for the limitation of conflict and depression of political participation. This tends to be equally true of measures designed to set up nonpartisan government or measures designed to take important public business out of politics altogether.

Democracy begins as an act of imagination about people. For this reason democracy is a doctrine of social criticism.

From the standpoint of party politics the margins within which pressure groups operate are limited. If a group divides equally in an election, its impact is zero.