Polarization In The Political System Essay, Research Paper

On Tuesday, November 14, 1995, in what has been perceived as

the years biggest non-event, the federal government shut down all

“non-essential” services due to what was, for all intents and

purposes, a game of national “chicken” between the House Speaker and

the President. And, at an estimated cost of 200 million dollars a day,

this dubious battle of dueling egos did not come cheap (Bradsher,

1995, p.16). Why do politicians find it almost congenitally

impossible to cooperate? What is it about politics and power that seem

to always put them at odds with good government? Indeed, is an

effective, well run government even possible given the current

adversarial relationship between our two main political parties? It

would seem that the exercise of power for its own sake, and a

competitive situation in which one side must always oppose the other

on any issue, is incompatible with the cooperation and compromise

necessary for the government to function. As the United States becomes

more extreme in its beliefs in general, group polarization and

competition, which requires a mutual exclusivity of goal attainment,

will lead to more “showdown” situations in which the goal of good

government gives way to political posturing and power-mongering.

In this paper I will analyze recent political behavior in terms of two

factors: Group behavior with an emphasis on polarization, and

competition. However, one should keep in mind that these two factors

are interrelated. Group polarization tends to exacerbate inter-group

competition by driving any two groups who initially disagree farther

apart in their respective views. In turn, a competitive situation in

which one side must lose in order for the other to win (and

political situations are nearly always competitive), will codify the

differences between groups – leading to further extremism by those

seeking power within the group – and thus, to further group

polarization.

In the above example, the two main combatants, Bill Clinton

and Newt Gingrich, were virtually forced to take uncompromising,

disparate views because of the very nature of authority within their

respective political groups. Group polarization refers to the tendency

of groups to gravitate to the extreme of whatever opinion the group

shares (Baron & Graziano, 1991, p.498-99). Therefore, if the extreme

is seen as a desirable characteristic, individuals who exhibit extreme

beliefs will gain authority through referent power. In other words,

they will have characteristics that other group members admire and

seek to emulate (p. 434). Unfortunately, this circle of polarization

and authority can lead to a bizarre form of “one-upsmanship” in which

each group member seeks to gain power and approval by being more

extreme than the others. The end result is extremism in the pursuit of

authority without any regard to the practicality or “reasonableness”

of the beliefs in question. Since the direction of polarization is

currently in opposite directions in our two party system, it is almost

impossible to find a common ground between them. In addition, the

competitive nature of the two party system many times eliminates even

the possibility of compromise since failure usually leads to a

devastating loss of power.

If both victory and extremism are necessary to retain power

within the group, and if, as Alfie Kohn (1986) stated in his book No

Contest: The Case Against Competition, competition is “mutually

exclusive goal attainment” (one side must lose in order for the other

to win), then compromise and cooperation are impossible (p. 136). This

is especially so if the opponents are dedicated to retaining power “at

all costs.” That power is an end in itself is made clear by the recent

shutdown of the government. It served no logical purpose. Beyond

costing a lot of money, it had no discernible effect except as a power

struggle between two political heavyweights. According to David Kipnis

(1976, cited in Baron & Graziano, 1991), one of the negative effects

of power is, in fact, the tendency to regard it as its own end, and to

ignore the possibility of disastrous results from the reckless use of

power (p. 433). Therefore, it would seem that (at least in this case)

government policy is created and implemented, not with regard to its

effectiveness as government policy, but only with regard to its value

as a tool for accumulating and maintaining power.

Another of Kipnis’s negative effects of power is the tendency to

use it for selfish purposes (p.433). In politics this can be seen as

the predilection towards making statements for short term political

gain that are either nonsensical or contradictory to past positions

held by the candidates themselves. While this may not be the use of

actual power, it is an attempt to gain political office (and therefore

power) without regard for the real worth or implications of a policy

for “good” government.

A prime example of this behavior can be seen in the widely

divergent political stances taken by Governor Pete Wilson of

California. At this point I should qualify my own political position.

While I do tend to lean towards the Democratic side of the political

spectrum (this is undoubtedly what brought Pete Wilson to my attention

in the first place), I examine Governor Wilson because he is such a

prime example of both polarization and pandering in the competitive

pursuit of power. Accordingly, I will try to hold my political biases

in check.

In any case, selfish, power seeking behavior is reflected in

Wilson’s recently abandoned campaign for President. Although he

consistently ruled out running for President during his second

gubernatorial campaign, immediately after he was re-elected he

announced that he was forming a committee to explore the possibility.

And, in fact, he did make an abortive run for the Republican

nomination. In both cases (presidential and gubernatorial elections),

he justified his seemingly contradictory positions in terms of his

“duty to the people”(No Author 1995). This begs the question; was it

the duty that was contradictory, or was it Wilson’s political

aspirations. In either case it seems clear that his decision was

hardly based on principles of good government. Even if Wilson

thought he had a greater duty to the nation as a whole (and I’m being

charitable here), he might have considered that before he ran for

governor a second time. It would appear much more likely that the

greater power inherent in the presidency was the determining force

behind Wilson’s decision. Ironically, Wilson’s lust for potential

power may cause him to lose the power he actually has. Since his

decision to run for President was resoundingly unpopular with

Californians, and since he may be perceived as unable to compete in

national politics due to his withdrawal from the presidential race,

his political power may be fatally impaired. This behavior shows not

only a disregard for “good” government, but also a strange inability

to defer gratification. There is no reason that Pete Wilson couldn’t

have run for President after his second term as Governor had expired.

His selfish pursuit of power for its own sake was so absolute that it

inhibited him from seeing the very political realities that gave him

power in the first place.

In his attempt to gain power, Wilson managed to change his

stance on virtually every issue he had ever encountered. From

immigration to affirmative action – from tax cuts to abortion rights,

he has swung 180 degrees (Thurm, 1995). The point here is not his

inconsistency, but rather the fact that it is improbable that

considerations of effective government would allow these kinds of

swings. And, while people may dismiss this behavior as merely the

political “game playing” that all candidates engage in, it is the

pervasiveness of this behavior – to the exclusion of any governmental

considerations – that make it distressing as well as intriguing.

Polarization is also apparent in this example. Since Pete Wilson

showed no inherent loyalty toward a particular ideology, it is

entirely likely that had the Republican party been drifting towards a

centrist position rather than an extreme right-wing position, Wilson

would have accordingly been more moderate in his political

pronouncements. The polarization towards an extreme is what caused him

to make such radical changes in his beliefs. It is, of course,

difficult to tell to what extent political intransigence is a

conscious strategy, or an unconscious motivation toward power, but the

end result is the same – political leadership that is not conducive

(or even relevant) to good government.

The role of competition in our political system is an inherently

contradictory one. We accept the fact that politicians must compete

ruthlessly to gain office using whatever tactics are necessary to win.

We then, somehow, expect them to completely change their behavior once

they are elected. At that point we expect cooperation, compromise,

and a statesmanlike attitude. Alfie Kohn (1986) points out that this

expectation is entirely unrealistic (p. 135). He also states that,

“Depriving adversaries of personalities, of faces , of their

subjectivity, is a strategy we automatically adopt in order to win”

(p.139). In other words, the very nature of competition requires that

we treat people as hostile objects rather than as human beings. It is,

therefore, unlikely, once an election is over and the process of

government is supposed to begin, that politicians will be able to

“forgive and forget” in order to carry on with the business at hand.

Once again, in the recent government shutdown we can see this

same sort of difficulty. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose

competitive political relationship with Bill Clinton has been

rancorous at best, blamed his own (Gingrich’s) handling of the budget

negotiations that resulted in the shutdown, on his poor treatment

during an airplane flight that he and the President were on (Turque &

Thomas, 1995, p. 28). One can look at this issue from both sides. On

the one hand, shabby treatment on an airplane flight is hardly a

reason to close the U.S. government. On the other hand, if the shabby

treatment occurred, was it a wise thing for the President to do in

light of the delicate negotiations that were going on at the time? In

both cases, it seems that all concerned were, in effect, blinded by

their competitive hostility.

They both presumably desired to run the government well (we

assume that’s why they ran for office in the first place), but

they couldn’t overcome their hostility long enough to run it at all.

If the Speaker is to be believed (although he has since tried to

retract his statements), the entire episode resulted not from a

legitimate disagreement about how to govern well, but from the

competitive desire to dominate government. Indeed, when one examines

the eventual compromise that was reached, there seems to be no

significant difference in the positions of the two parties. If this is

so, why was it necessary to waste millions of dollars shutting down

the government and then starting it up again a few days later? What’s

more, this entire useless episode will be reenacted in mid-December.

One can only hope that Clinton and Gingrich avoid traveling together

until an agreement is reached. Although people incessantly complain

about government and about the ineffectiveness of politicians, they

rarely examine the causes of these problems. While there is a lot of

attention paid to campaign finance reform, lobbying reform, PAC

reform, and the peddling of influence, we never seem to realize

that, most of the time, politicians are merely giving us what they

think we want. If they are weak and dominated by polls, aren’t they

really trying to find out “the will of the people” in order to comply

with it? If they are extremist and uncompromising in their political

stances, aren’t they simply reflecting the extremism prevalent in our

country today? If politicians compromise, we call them weak, and if

they don’t we call them extremist. If we are unhappy with our

government, perhaps it is because we expect the people who run it to

do the impossible. They must reflect the will of a large, disparate

electorate, and yet be 100 percent consistent in their ideology.

However, if we look at political behavior in terms of our own

polarized, partisan attitudes, and if we can find a way to either

reduce the competitive nature of campaigns, or reconcile pre-election

hostility with post-election statesmanship, then we may find a way to

elect politicians on the basis of how they will govern rather than how

they run. It may be tempting to dismiss all this as merely “the way

politics is” or say that “competition is human nature”, or perhaps

think that these behaviors are essentially harmless. But consider

these two examples. It has been speculated that President Lyndon B.

Johnson was unwilling to get out of the Vietnam war because he didn’t

want to be remembered as the first American President to lose a war.

If this is true, it means that thousands of people, both American and

Vietnamese, died in order to protect one man’s status. In Oklahoma

City, a federal building was bombed in 1994, killing hundreds of men,

women, and children. The alleged perpetrators were a group of extreme,

right wing, “constitutionalists” who were apparently trying to turn

frustration with the federal government into open revolution.

I do not think these examples are aberrations or flukes, but are,

instead, indicative of structural defects in our political system. If

we are not aware of the dangers of extremism and competition, we may,

in the end, be destroyed by them.

—

References

Baron, B.M., & Graziano, W.G. (1991). Social Psychology. Fort Worth,

TX. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Bradsher, K. (1995, November 18). Country may be losing money with

government closed. The New York Times, pp.16

Kohn, A. (1986). No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Boston,

Houghton Mifflin.

No Author. (1995, March 24). [internet] What Wilson has said about

entering race. San Jose Mercury News Online.

Address:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil324s.htm

Thurm, S. (1995, August 29). [internet] Wilson’s ‘announcement’ more

of an ad: California governor kicks off drive for GOP presidential

nomination. San Jose Mercury News Online.

Address:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil829.htm

Turgue, B., & Thomas, E. (1995, November 27). Missing the moment.

Newsweek, pp.26-29.