ON SPECIAL INTERESTS, PUBLIC INTERESTS, AND UNEQUAL REPRESENTATION

One theme runs through the various articles in this issue of the IPSR, either explicitly or by implication-the ''common good.'' A second the me is inclusion and exclusion, that is, the group system judged in ter ms of some standard of public equity. Based on American material, this article tries to bring the two lines of argument together in order to elucidate the contours of ''private representation.'' It does so by a nalyzing how contemporary political thought has dealt with three probl ems: the distinction between special and public interests; principles of group classification, which have attracted renewed attention in rec ent years; and the concept of public interest groups, in the behaviora l redefinition of the term.