Politics As The Art Of Compromise example essay topic

I. The label "art of compromise" and it's reference to politics. Politics is referred to as the "art of compromise". It is essential to a democratic society. Elected officials meet in legislative chambers to hammer out policies that all constituents can live with. Successful politicians learn early on the survival value of compromise.

Economist Donald Wittman (1995: 154) correctly observes, "That is what good politicians do: create coalitions and find acceptable compromises". Also political philosopher Jean Bethe Elshtain (1995: 61) states "But compromise is not a mediocre way to do politics; it is an adventure, the only way to do democratic politics". II. Reasons why compromise is essential. Politicians need to be able to compromise and be good at bargaining with other elected officials. One reason is that in order to get what is important to them, they must be willing to negotiate with others who also want support, it's is a trade off in that each wants support for the their cause and in turn, must support someone else's cause as well.

They must do this type of bargaining in order to win enough support to get the votes necessary to win for their constituents. If the constituents don't see that the elected official can bring home the bacon, they won't vote for them in the next election. In other words, without compromise, nothing will be acheive d for the constituency, and as a result the official will not likely continue to hold office for long. By the same token, no politicians or voters, will get everything they want. There must be a majority to implement policy, which means that means that almost every time supporters of policy will have to give up something of value to others in order to wi enough support for their cause.

This is referred to as "logrolling". In order to function well, Congress needs members who understand the need for and have the ability to compromise; who are willing to be team players and fight for what they believe without demonizing their opponents, so that they may work with them again on different issues. A politician who refuses to compromise is typically labeled as an "ideologue", a title which has little prestige among members of political class.. Backlash of compromise and the role politics play in regard to effectiveness of compromise.

Politicians who are known for compromise are less attractive in the public opinion. The public prefers rigid adherence to principles they believe are important, and don't generally understand the essential need for compromise, or how necessary it is to get things done. Because compromise is essential to being effective for the constituency, each legislator is confronted by the difficult task of being an expert compromiser in legislatures while appearing to voters to be an uncompromising champion of principle. Democratic politics falls short of achieving optimal compromise not only because of immoderate ideological restraints imposed on representatives by voters, but also because it displaces arrangements which could achieve a far greater amount of progress.

Politics stifle more beneficial compromise than it promotes. President George Bush Sr. learned how damaging a non-compliant attitude in regards to his 1990 "read my lips, no new taxes" campaign pledge. President Bush Sr. did what comes naturally to all politicians: compromise first and worry about ideology later. However, his problem was he was caught in the act and his political rivals easily portrayed his character as an unprincipled leader. He stated "The biggest mistake of my presidency was that I damaged my credibility by agreeing to a tax increase... I worked a compromise and it cost me plenty" (Bush 1996).

However, when Ronald Reagan compromised during his presidency, he had such refined communication skills that he was able to deflect the public's attention from his compromises, and focus it instead on his proudly proclaimed ideological beliefs. Institutional effectiveness requires officials with a relatively long time goals who see policy making as an ongoing process in which there are no final winners and should be no total losers. IV. A voice by all is not heard.

The political bargaining table only has a limited number of seats. While all parties at the table must compromise amongst themselves, they are the lucky few to have a say in what will be compromised upon. Individual citizens rarely have political influence. Political influence requires that people be organized into lobbying groups of sufficient size and with sufficient resources to attract the attentions of elected officials.

Politics is weak at compromise because politics artificially and unnecessarily limits the number of bargaining parties (Crew and Twight 1990; Twight 1994). Parties excluded from the table never have their interests on the table to be weighed against the interests of the select few sitting at the table. The interests of unorganized groups are ignored by political processes. Thus describing politics as the art of compromise is misleading because the value to interest groups using political process depends on the inability of other groups to organize effectively and join in the bargaining.

Because of this advantage, interest groups have incentives to limit the number of parties sitting at the table. The end result is that the general, unorganized public typically are compromised by political compromise. If the public does not trust the institution, and does not understand the crucial role that bargaining and compromise play, it becomes much more difficult for politicians to make the hard choices. Conclusion Compromise is an ingredient of a democratic society that cannot be excluded. It has helped our society to be able to make changes, which without compromise, we could not have benefited from the positive effects of had it not been possible to compromise with others. Compromise does have it's pitfalls, and it is restrained for two basic reasons.

First, the indecisiveness of each voter's vote in democratic elections causes voters to vote too ideologically, and voters reward politicians for supporting policies consistent with ideological beliefs, whether or not such policies pass any reasonable cost-benefit tests (Sinclair 1996). Fear of punishment from voters keeps politicians from compromising as openly and fully as they otherwise would. Second, political decision making is too sensitive to special interest groups, and too insensitive to unorganized groups. That is not everyone who is being affected by policy decisions is having a say in what is being considered. Thus, although compromise does weigh in heavily in support of the processes of a democratic society, it is not without fault, and does neglect a large part of the public's interests by not allowing them the representation they deserve to have a voice about all policy making which goes on behind closed doors, and away from public view.

However, compromise should be more open and accepted by the public, criticized and debated upon, in order for our society to be considered a true democracy.

Bibliography

Sources Bush, G. (1996) "Notable & Quotable".
In Wall Street Journal, 26 January: A 10. Crew, M.A., and Twight, C. (1990) "On the Efficiency of Law: A Public Choice Perspective".
Public Choice 66: 15-36 Elshtain. J.B. (1995) Democracy on Trial.
New York: Basic Books. Sinclair, B. (1996) Vote for Me: Politics in America.
American Political Science Association, September, 1996.
Wittman, D.A. (1995) The Myth of Democratic Failure.