I'm all for precision in language, but this one is easy. A "special interest" is an entity that is a beneficiary of public policy intended to benefit some small

I'm all for precision in language, but this one is easy. A "special interest" is an entity that is a beneficiary of public policy intended to benefit some small subsector of the population. The "general interest" is the utility of society as a whole. Interestingly, there are strong economic incentives for democracies to create policy that benefits special interests at the expense of the general interest.