tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/party-politics-651/articlesParty politics – The Conversation2023-03-29T15:13:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017892023-03-29T15:13:28Z2023-03-29T15:13:28ZDoes democracy fuel corruption? Most Ghanaians don’t think so<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516620/original/file-20230321-28-cxeomc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The High Court in Accra, Ghana's capital. Strengthening the judiciary would ensure a better democratic outcome.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MyLoupe/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Does democracy breed corruption – particularly in developing countries? </p>
<p>There are strong advocates of the theory. And strong detractors. </p>
<p>Some studies conclude that democracy aggravates corruption. For instance, noted scholar of public policy <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/democracy-inequality-and-corruption/democracy-inequality-and-corruption/12039E2DE074F0097F7BB6EC842F2699#">Jong-Sung You’s</a> work explores the relationships between democracy, inequality and corruption. He <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/democracy-inequality-and-corruption/democracy-inequality-and-corruption/12039E2DE074F0097F7BB6EC842F2699#">shows</a>in a study of three East Asian countries that democracy can worsen corruption when a country has high levels of inequality. This, in turn, increases clientelism and patronage politics and state capture. </p>
<p>Other studies show that democracy can help combat corruption. One <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00220380802468579">study</a> by academic Michael Rock, using data from multiple countries shows that corruption initially increased following democratisation. But that it declined later as the age of democracy increases – the turning point is between 10 to 12 years. </p>
<p>This ‘age of democracy’ theory indicates that as democracy gets older, it allows time for the rule of law to be strengthened and transparent and accountable institutions to take hold which are capable of controlling corruption. </p>
<p>Ghana provides an interesting case study. It has been a democracy for the last <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2173178">29 years</a>. At the same time, corruption remains a monumental <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/corruption/Publications/2022/GHANA_-_Corruption_survey_report_-_20.07.2022.pdf">challenge</a>. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2023.2173178">paper </a> I explored the issue. I interviewed Ghanaian politicians, academics, anti-corruption activists, and journalists about whether democracy fuels corruption in Ghana. </p>
<p>A fifth of those interviewed argued that democracy fuels corruption in Ghana while about 80% disagreed. But most believed that the way democracy is practised is to blame for corruption – not democracy itself. </p>
<p>My study does not suggest there is less corruption in a dictatorship compared to democracy. Instead, I conclude that corruption is still prevalent in Ghana 29 years after democratic elections because the country has a flawed democracy. There has been a failure to establish and implement robust accountability mechanisms to control corruption effectively.</p>
<h2>Democracy fuels corruption</h2>
<p>My study drew on 25 in-depth interviews with politicians, academics, anti-corruption activists and media personnel. A number of arguments were put forward by the 20% who believe that democracy leads to more corruption. One was that democracy allows some people to gain power and amass illegitimate wealth without consequences. </p>
<p>A politician said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It looks like a group of friends come together to form a political party, maybe I will say, with the sole interest of looting the state with little intention of solving people’s problems. But unfortunately, we have only two main parties always positioned for power, and it is always family and friends, like a cartel, always come together, steal, and go and another will come.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others commented that politicians who win power through the polls loot state coffers to pay off past campaign expenses, finance future elections, and accumulate wealth for future use should they lose power. </p>
<p>This group also reported that political parties in power often shielded their corrupt members to protect party reputation and boost electability. This resulted in impunity.</p>
<p>Some also argued that securing justice in Ghana’s democratic system was hard to achieve. This allowed lawlessness and corruption to thrive. </p>
<p>As another politician said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everybody is finding a way to see a judge and pay something, and the prosecutor fails to go to court or drops cases, making people continue to misappropriate public funds because they know they can get away with it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This points to the fact that the rule of law and checks and balances in government are weak. </p>
<h2>Democracy isn’t the problem</h2>
<p>A range of arguments were put forward among the 80% who believed democracy could not be blamed for persistent corruption. In their view, democracy has helped promote information flow, shedding more light on corruption than in authoritarian regimes. </p>
<p>A media practitioner said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whether military or civilian rule, corruption is there. I don’t think democracy in itself has contributed to the problem of corruption. Suppose we lived in a country where there was no democracy, if a monarchy or a military ruler that did something wrong in government, you couldn’t freely come out to talk about it. Democracy has instead helped us talk about it and bring corruption issues to bare, at least in the public domain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A political scientist and anti-corruption activist put it this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No one can say those authoritarian regimes do not see or harbour corrupt practices except that in authoritarian regimes or dictatorship, information flow is limited, so you don’t get to know.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact that democratic freedoms had facilitated information flow and shed light on corruption had created an erroneous impression that democracy fuelled corruption more than authoritarian regimes. </p>
<h2>The practice is what counts</h2>
<p>In response to the question on whether democracy has helped fuel corruption in Ghana, one respondent, a political science scholar, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t think so. It is rather the corrupt practice of democracy that brings about corruption. The corrupt practice of democracy that brings about winner-takes-all politics – we have won, it is our time to chop {enjoy} – that is what brings about corruption. But democracy itself wouldn’t bring about corruption.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another interviewee commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The politics of democracy fuel corruption, but it is not the democratic system of government that fuels corruption. It is the way we do it {democracy}, the way we practise that sometimes fuels corruption.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other participants commented that monetisation of elections and the lack of transparency in political party funding produced corrupt leaders. This made it difficult to combat corruption.</p>
<p>Also, according to interviewees, Ghana’s 1992 constitution provided insufficient checks and balances. For example, the electoral system enables a winner-takes-all politics in which the group, or party, that wins at the polls (and their allies) are able to monopolise resources. </p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>For democracy to reduce corruption, several measures are needed. These views echo arguments made by scholars <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2015.1081896">Landry Signé and Koiffi Korha</a>. </p>
<p>Research participants emphasised addressing extreme executive power while strengthening the rule of law and horizontal accountability institutions. These include the legislature, the judiciary, and auditing and anti-corruption bodies.</p>
<p>Participants also recommended sustained public pressure on whoever is in power to ensure political commitment to combating corruption.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Yaw Asomah does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ghana’s flawed democracy has failed to establish mechanisms to effectively control corruption.Joseph Yaw Asomah, Assistant Professor, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1922822022-10-31T12:34:21Z2022-10-31T12:34:21ZRepublicans and Democrats see news bias only in stories that clearly favor the other party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492353/original/file-20221028-68119-lwyx09.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C26%2C5899%2C3903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">If you detect news media bias, that perception may be a result of your own bias.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sen-joe-manchin-speaks-to-reporters-outside-of-his-office-news-photo/1412537754?phrase=news%20reporters&adppopup=true">Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Charges of media bias – that “the media” are trying to brainwash Americans by feeding the public only one side of every issue – have become as common as campaign ads in the run-up to the midterm elections.</p>
<p>As a political scientist who has <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5621">examined media coverage of the Trump presidency and campaigns</a>, I can say that this is what social science research tells us about media bias.</p>
<p>First, media bias is in the eye of the beholder. </p>
<p>Communications scholars have found that if you ask people in any community, using scientific polling methods, whether their local media are biased, you’ll find that about half say yes. But of that half, typically a little more than a quarter say that their local media are biased against Republicans, and a little less than a quarter <a href="https://digitalcommons.coastal.edu/jops/vol35/iss1/2/">say the same local media are biased against Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>Research shows that Republicans and Democrats spot bias only in articles that clearly favor the other party. If an article tilts in favor of their own party, they tend to see it as unbiased.</p>
<p>Many people, then, define “bias” as “anything that doesn’t agree with me.” It’s not hard to see why.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gmvpBZnve70?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Liberal bias’ in the media is a constant topic on Fox News.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Media’ is a plural word</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Abramowitz-Polarized-Public-The/PGM59757.html">American party politics has become increasingly polarized</a> in recent decades. Republicans have become more consistently conservative, and Democrats have become more consistently liberal to moderate. </p>
<p>As the lines have been drawn more clearly, many people have developed <a href="https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/power-negative-partisanship">hostile feelings toward the opposition party</a>. </p>
<p>In a 2016 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/22/key-facts-partisanship/">Pew Research Center poll</a>, 45% of Republicans said the Democratic Party’s policies are “so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being,” and 41% of Democrats said the same about Republicans. A <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/08/09/as-partisan-hostility-grows-signs-of-frustration-with-the-two-party-system/">poll conducted in midyear 2022 by Pew showed</a> that “72% of Republicans regard Democrats as more immoral, and 63% of Democrats say the same about Republicans.”</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, media outlets have arisen <a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/10/19/the_birth_of_fox_news/">to appeal primarily to people who share a conservative view</a>, or people who <a href="https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444">share a liberal view</a>.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that “the media” are biased. There are hundreds of thousands of media outlets in the U.S. – newspapers, radio, network TV, cable TV, blogs, websites and social media. These news outlets don’t all take the same perspective on any given issue. </p>
<p>If you want a very conservative news site, it is not hard to find one, and the same with a very liberal news site.</p>
<h2>First Amendment rules</h2>
<p>“The media,” then, <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2016/is-media-bias-really-rampant-ask-the-man-who-studies-it-for-a-living/">present a variety of different perspectives</a>. That’s the way a free press works. </p>
<p>The Constitution’s First Amendment says Congress shall make no law limiting the freedom of the press. It doesn’t say that Congress shall require all media sources to be “unbiased.” Rather, it implies that as long as Congress does not systematically suppress any particular point of view, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/06/what-first-amendment-protects-and-what-doesnt/469920002/">then the free press can do its job</a> as one of the primary checks on a powerful government.</p>
<p>When the Constitution was written and for most of U.S. history, the major news sources – newspapers, for most of that time – <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691123677/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-sell">were explicitly biased</a>. Most were sponsored by a political party or a partisan individual. </p>
<p>The notion of objective journalism – that media must report both sides of every issue in every story – barely existed until the late 1800s. It reached full flower only in the few decades when broadcast television, limited to three major networks, was <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/postbroadcast-democracy/A0D17A3CD156A0D1BB4318EE5DBCC60B">the primary source of political information</a>.</p>
<p>Since that time, the media universe has expanded to include huge numbers of internet news sites, cable channels and social media posts. So if you feel that the media sources you’re reading or watching are biased, you can read a wider variety of media sources.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Front page of the April 15, 1789 edition of the Gazette of the United States" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/362812/original/file-20201011-15-1gujjcx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Jefferson described this partisan newspaper, The Gazette of the United States, as ‘a paper of pure Toryism … disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy, and the exclusion of the people.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030483/1789-04-15/ed-1/seq-1/">Library of Congress, Chronicling America collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If it bleeds, it leads</h2>
<p>There is one form of actual media bias. Almost all media outlets need audiences in order to exist. Some can’t survive financially without an audience; others want the prestige that comes from attracting a big audience. </p>
<p>Thus, the media define as “news” the kinds of stories that will attract an audience: those that feature drama, conflict, engaging pictures and immediacy. That’s what <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/content/deciding-whats-news">most people find interesting</a>. They don’t want to read a story headlined “Dog bites man.” They want “Man bites dog.”</p>
<p>The problem is that a focus on such stories crowds out what we need to know to protect our democracy, such as: How do the workings of American institutions benefit some groups and disadvantage others? In what ways do our major systems – education, health care, national defense and others – function effectively or less effectively? </p>
<p>These analyses are vital to citizens – if we fail to protect our democracy, our lives will be changed forever – but they aren’t always fun to read. So they get covered much less than celebrity scandals or murder cases – which, while compelling, don’t really affect the ability to sustain a democratic system.</p>
<p>Writer Dave Barry demonstrated this media bias in favor of dramatic stories <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/living/liv-columns-blogs/dave-barry/article205604594.html">in a 1998 column</a>. </p>
<p>He wrote, “Let’s consider two headlines. FIRST HEADLINE: ‘Federal Reserve Board Ponders Reversal of Postponement of Deferral of Policy Reconsideration.’ SECOND HEADLINE: ‘Federal Reserve Board Caught in Motel with Underage Sheep.’ Be honest, now. Which of these two stories would you read?”</p>
<p>By focusing on the daily equivalent of the underage sheep, media can direct our attention away from the important systems that affect our lives. That isn’t the media’s fault; we are the audience whose attention media outlets want to attract. </p>
<p>But as long as we think of governance in terms of its entertainment value and media bias in terms of Republicans and Democrats, we’ll continue to be less informed than we need to be. That’s the real media bias.</p>
<p><em>This story is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-bias-in-media-doesnt-threaten-democracy-other-less-visible-biases-do-144844">an article that was originally published</a> on Oct. 15, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marjorie Hershey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many people define ‘bias’ as ‘anything that doesn’t agree with me.’ But are the news media really biased?Marjorie Hershey, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878952022-07-29T12:22:14Z2022-07-29T12:22:14ZA new third party for US politics – 3 essential reads on what that means<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476572/original/file-20220728-33778-3g1vdk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C8%2C2991%2C1980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Andrew Yang, losing candidate for president and New York City mayor, is one of the founders of the Forward Party.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/andrew-yang-new-york-city-mayoral-candidate-talks-with-a-news-photo/1324433973?adppopup=true">Rob Kim/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In June 2022, Gallup asked participants in a U.S. survey about their party membership. “In politics,” pollsters asked, “as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?”</p>
<p>The largest segment of participants – 43% – said they were independent. Republicans and Democrats represented 27% each.</p>
<p>Note the lower case “i” in independent. That means it’s not a party, as the Democrats and Republicans are. Actual political parties have policies, they have big bank accounts, they have organizations in every state, and they have a place on the ballot in elections. </p>
<p>But if the leaders of a new, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-former-republicans-democrats-form-new-third-us-political-party-2022-07-27/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email">centrist political party whose formation was announced on July 28, 2022,</a> accomplish their goal, the “Forward Party” will attract many voters who no longer identify as Democrats or Republicans and it will become a force for moderation - and an institution - in U.S. electoral politics. </p>
<p>“How will we solve the big issues facing America?” the founders said at a news conference. “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.”</p>
<p>Here are three stories from The Conversation’s archives that analyze the chances of third-party success at changing the U.S. political system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four men from the 18th century, with three sitting at a table and one standing up near a fireplace." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476581/original/file-20220728-14976-h14lje.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Founding Fathers didn’t think highly of political parties, with Alexander Hamilton, second from right, saying they were a ‘most fatal disease.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/illustration-of-four-of-the-united-states-foundign-fathers-news-photo/145890547?adppopup=true">Stock Montage/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Don’t count on it</h2>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m_RGUrgAAAAJ&hl=en">Alexander Cohen</a> of Clarkson University acknowledges that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-two-party-system-is-here-to-stay-132423">the U.S. two-party system has long been “besieged</a>.” Critics of party politics in general date to the country’s founding.</p>
<p>“Alexander Hamilton called political parties a ‘most fatal disease,’” Cohen writes. “James Madison renounced the ‘violence of faction,’ and George Washington feared that an overly successful party would create ‘frightful despotism.’”</p>
<p>Still, parties persisted as the vehicles of electoral politics in the country, evolving into the current two-party system from a variety of parties that emerged and died over the past 200 years. An upstart third party is unlikely to dislodge the status quo, Cohen says.</p>
<p>“The modern Republicans and Democrats are unlikely to go the way of the Whigs, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, regardless of recent political earthquakes.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-two-party-system-is-here-to-stay-132423">The two-party system is here to stay</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. It’s hard to end the party</h2>
<p>A third party, writes Indiana University political scientist <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/hershey-marjorie.html">Marjorie Hershey</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-more-likely-to-win-in-the-gop-than-to-take-his-followers-to-a-new-third-party-156001">simply doesn’t have an advantage in the U.S. political system</a>.</p>
<p>“The American electoral system is the primary reason why the U.S. is the sole major democracy with only two parties consistently capable of electing public officials,” writes Hershey. “Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality rules, or ‘winner take all.’ Whoever gets the most votes wins the single seat up for election.” </p>
<p>But in many other democracies, Hershey says, multiple political parties can thrive because of a different system of electing representatives. For example, Hershey writes, there are widely used systems that award seats proportionally to the percentage of votes a party wins. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317863/original/file-20200228-24651-5vdkjx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1852 Whig Party presidential campaign poster. Within 10 years, the party was no more.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b50367/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“In the Netherlands, for instance,” writes Hershey, “even a small ‘third’ party called the Party for the Animals – composed of animal rights supporters, not dogs and cats – won 3.2% of the legislative vote in 2017 and earned five seats, out of 150, in the national legislature.”</p>
<p>If that system existed in the U.S., that would mean even a small party would be smart to run Congressional candidates, because even if the party only got 5% of the vote, “they could win 5% of the state’s U.S. House seats.”</p>
<p>But a caveat: Those voters who call themselves “independent,” or say they’re disappointed by or disillusioned with political parties, are still influenced by vestigial party sentiment. Pollsters find, writes Hershey, “that most of these ‘independents’ actually lean toward either the Democrats or the Republicans, and their voting choices are almost as intensely partisan as those who do claim a party affiliation.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-more-likely-to-win-in-the-gop-than-to-take-his-followers-to-a-new-third-party-156001">Why Trump is more likely to win in the GOP than to take his followers to a new third party</a>
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<h2>3. Winning isn’t everything</h2>
<p>Not everyone sees failure at the ballot box as the final judgment on U.S. third parties. Winning elections isn’t necessarily the goal.</p>
<p>“The most successful third parties in U.S. politics don’t typically rise to dominance but instead <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403">challenge the major parties enough to force them to change course</a>,” writes political scientist <a href="https://www.valdosta.edu/about/directory/profile/bitamas">Bernard Tamas</a> of Valdosta State University.</p>
<p><iframe id="sX4JK" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sX4JK/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Tamas, who has written a book on U.S. third parties, says that they tend to emerge when Democrats and Republicans are politically polarized – something that has happened periodically since the Civil War. That polarization between parties means “larger groups of voters end up being not represented by either one, and the intense contention between them also increases political dissatisfaction.”</p>
<p>For the 50 years after the Civil War, the two parties were very polarized. Third parties were “aggressive and strong” during that period, Tamas writes.</p>
<p>But their aim wasn’t to make themselves an institution in a new, multiparty democracy – as the Forward Party’s leaders hope now.</p>
<p>For example, the Greenback Party in the 1870s and the Populist Party in the 1890s both aimed, via electoral victories, to force the major parties to adopt policies supporting “poor farmers and opposing business monopolies.” The Populist Party was especially successful in pressing the Democrats to embrace those positions. </p>
<p>Tamas predicted in 2021 that a new, centrist third party would emerge – very much like the party that made its debut on July 28. He noted that challenging the Trump-influenced GOP would be a main focus of such a party.</p>
<p>“The new party could gain strategic advantages by fielding candidates in local and state elections in more moderate places where some Republican candidates have nevertheless chosen to follow their party to the extreme,” he writes. </p>
<p>But even if the Forward Party raises money and fields successful candidates, it may not be long in the U.S. political landscape.</p>
<p>“The Progressive Party existed for less than a decade, for example,” Tamas writes. “But by strategically winning the votes of moderate conservatives and thereby undermining Republicans’ electoral goals, even if briefly, a new third party could stop the GOP from hurtling farther down an extreme and undemocratic path.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403">US third parties can rein in the extremism of the two-party system</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
There’s a new party in town – but it may not last long.Naomi Schalit, Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy, The Conversation USLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1560012021-05-03T12:04:15Z2021-05-03T12:04:15ZWhy Trump is more likely to win in the GOP than to take his followers to a new third party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397440/original/file-20210427-21-1eefrnx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C51%2C5691%2C3776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supporters of former President Trump gather outside of Trump Tower during a rare visit Trump made to his New York offices, March 8, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/supporters-of-former-president-trump-gather-outside-of-news-photo/1306020725?adppopup=true">Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former President Donald Trump has claimed at times that he’ll start a third political party called the Patriot Party. In fact, most Americans – <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/329639/support-third-political-party-high-point.aspx">62% in a recent poll</a> – say they’d welcome the chance to vote for a third party. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation_voting_systems">In almost any other democracy</a>, those Americans would get their wish. In the Netherlands, for instance, even a small “third” party called the <a href="https://www.partyfortheanimals.com/">Party for the Animals</a> – composed of animal rights supporters, not dogs and cats – won 3.2% of the legislative vote in 2017 and earned five seats, out of 150, in the national legislature. </p>
<p>Yet in the U.S., candidates for the House of Representatives from the Libertarian Party, the most successful of U.S. minor parties, won not a single House seat in 2020, though Libertarians got over a million House votes. Neither did the Working Families Party, <a href="http://ballot-access.org/2021/01/23/january-2021-ballot-access-news-print-edition/">with 390,000 votes</a>, or the Legalize Marijuana Now Party, <a href="https://news.ballotpedia.org/2021/01/29/77-third-party-candidates-received-more-votes-than-the-winners-margin-of-victory-in-2020/">whose U.S. Senate candidate from Minnesota won 185,000 votes</a>. </p>
<p>Why don’t American voters have more than two viable parties to choose among in elections, when almost every other democratic nation in the world does?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="12 head shots of Trump and Biden voters are arrayed in a 4 by 3 grid, many wearing masks with political slogans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397441/original/file-20210427-19-xs8rxp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These voters supported either Biden or Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Yet 62% of Americans say they’d like the option of voting for a third-party candidate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-combination-of-pictures-created-on-november-01-2020-news-photo/1229402211?adppopup=true">Mandel Ngan, Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Plurality rules</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://polisci.indiana.edu/about/faculty/hershey-marjorie.html">I’ve found in researching political parties</a>, the American electoral system is the primary reason why the U.S. is the sole major democracy with only two parties consistently capable of electing public officials. Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality rules, or “winner take all.” Whoever gets the most votes wins the single seat up for election.</p>
<p>Other democracies choose to count some or all of their votes differently. Instead of, say, California being divided into 53 U.S. House districts, each district electing one representative, the whole state could become a multi-member district, and all the voters in California would be asked to choose all 53 U.S. House members <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Proportional_representation">using proportional representation</a>. </p>
<p>Each party would present a list of its candidates for all 53 seats, and you, as the voter, would select one of the party slates. If your party got 40% of the votes in the state, then it would elect 40% of the representatives – the first 21 candidates listed on the party’s slate. This is the system used in <a href="https://www.fairvote.org/proportional_representation_voting_systems">21 of the 28 countries in Western Europe</a>, including Germany and Spain.</p>
<p>In such a system – depending on the minimum percentage, or threshold, a party needed to win one seat – it would make sense for even a small party to run candidates for the U.S. House, reasoning that if they got just 5% of the vote, they could win 5% of the state’s U.S. House seats. </p>
<p>So if the Legalize Marijuana Now party won 5% of the vote in California, two or three of the party’s candidates would become House members, ready to argue in Congress for marijuana legalization. In fact, until the 1950s, several U.S. states had multi-member districts. </p>
<p>Under the current electoral system, however, if the Legalize Marijuana Now party gets 5% of the state’s House vote, it wins nothing. It has spent a lot of money and effort with no officeholders to show for it. This disadvantage for small parties is also <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Electoral_College">built into the Electoral College</a>, where a candidate needs a majority of electoral votes to win the presidency – and no non-major-party candidate ever has.</p>
<h2>Parties run the show</h2>
<p>There’s another factor working against third-party success: State legislatures make the rules about how candidates and parties get on the ballot, and state legislatures are <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Partisan_composition_of_state_legislatures">made up almost exclusively of Republicans and Democrats</a>. They have no desire to increase their competition. </p>
<p>So a minor-party candidate typically needs many more signatures on a petition to get on the ballot than major-party candidates do, <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2019/07/01/progress-stalls-for-minor-parties-to-get-on-state-ballots">and often also pays a filing fee</a> that major party candidates don’t necessarily have to pay. </p>
<p>Further, although many Americans call themselves “independents,” pollsters find that most of these “independents” actually lean toward either the Democrats or the Republicans, and their voting choices are <a href="https://theconversation.com/partisanship-runs-deep-in-america-even-among-independents-104884">almost as intensely partisan as those who do claim a party affiliation</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people voting in a large public space." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397577/original/file-20210428-13-14u1efc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even though many Americans call themselves ‘independent,’ their voting choices are almost as intensely partisan as those who say they are Democrats or Republicans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/residents-vote-at-a-polling-place-set-up-for-early-voting-news-photo/1283382520?adppopup=true">Scott Olson/Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Party identification is the single most important determinant of people’s voting choices; <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results">in 2020</a>, 94% of Republicans voted for Donald Trump, and the same percentage of Democrats voted for Joe Biden. </p>
<p>The small number of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-independents-who-they-are-what-they-think/">true independents</a> in American politics are much less likely to show interest in politics and to vote. So it would not be easy for a third party to get Americans to put aside their existing partisan allegiance.</p>
<h2>Hard to get there from here</h2>
<p>The idea of a “center” party has great appeal – in theory. In practice, few agree on what “centrist” means. Lots of people, when asked this question, envision a “center” party that reflects all their own views and none of the views they disagree with.</p>
<p>That’s where a Trump Party does have one advantage. Prospective Trump Party supporters do agree on what they stand for: Donald Trump.</p>
<p>[<em>The Conversation’s newsletter explains what’s going on with the coronavirus pandemic. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=coronavirus-going-on">Subscribe now</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>Yet there’s an easier path for Trump supporters than fighting the U.S. electoral system, unfriendly ballot access rules and entrenched party identification. That’s to take over the Republican Party. In fact, they’re very close to doing so now.</p>
<p>Trump retains a powerful hold over the party’s policies. His adviser, Jason Miller, stated, “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ex-rnc-chair-urges-trump-voters-leave-gop-form-new-party-theres-door-1571010">Trump effectively is the Republican Party</a>.” This Trump Party is very different from Ronald Reagan’s GOP. That’s not surprising; the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Party-Politics-in-America/Hershey/p/book/9780367472573">U.S. major parties have always been permeable and vulnerable to takeover by factions</a>.</p>
<p>There are good reasons for Americans to want more major parties. It’s hard for two parties to capture the diversity of views in a nation of more than 300 million people. </p>
<p>But American politics would look very different if the country had a viable multi-party system, in which voters could choose from among, say, a Socialist Party, a White Supremacist Party and maybe even a Party for the Animals. </p>
<p>To get there, Congress and state legislatures would need to make fundamental changes in American elections, converting single-member districts with winner-take-all rules into multi-member districts with proportional representation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marjorie Hershey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The majority of Americans say they’d like to be able to vote for a third party. Donald Trump says he might start one. But neither is likely to happen.Marjorie Hershey, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1416632020-08-17T14:04:47Z2020-08-17T14:04:47ZPandemic alters political conventions – which have always changed with the times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352987/original/file-20200814-24-1q6h3uy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5455%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The spectacle at the 2016 Republican National Convention will not be repeated in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-GOP-2016-Convention/bf9bd72b6b984c18b8063c488f8bfc2b/9/1">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Politics, like everything else in American life, is being reshaped by the pandemic and by technology. <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-unveil-wide-ranging-speaker-schedule-virtual-convention/story?id=72303837">Democrats held almost all of their 2020 nominating convention virtually</a>. Republicans have not moved their convention online – <a href="https://www.charlotteagenda.com/227800/what-to-expect-with-the-scaled-back-rnc-in-charlotte-this-month/">delegates will still attend the event</a> in Charlotte, North Carolina – but it will be significantly scaled back. </p>
<p>Most notably, President Donald Trump will give his renomination acceptance speech at another location – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/politics/jacksonville-rnc.html">first planned to be in Jacksonville, Florida</a>, but which <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/politics/trump-rnc-speech-white-house/index.html">now might be at the White House</a>, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/10/trump-gettysburg-republican-national-convention-nomination">possibly the Gettysburg battlefield</a>, but which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/us/politics/trump-rnc-speech.html">could theoretically happen anywhere</a>. </p>
<p>These technological adaptations signal a permanent shift in the way nominating conventions meet and the way voters watch them – but it’s not the first time such radical changes have come to politics.</p>
<p>Technology has driven change in the presidential nominating process since the earliest days of American parties. This is a lesson I learned while researching 19th-century party politics for my book, “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511750748">The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880-1896</a>.” America’s current party organizations were built as party leaders used new technologies to make their proceedings more attractive to voters and their candidates more appealing. </p>
<p><iframe id="0ycJz" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/0ycJz/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>The caucus system</h2>
<p>The first nominating process was not a convention at all. In an age of horse-drawn carriages on muddy dirt roads it could take more than a week – in good weather – <a href="http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/138/a/">just to cross large states like New York</a>. Travel was expensive and unreliable, making large gatherings of people separated by great distances unworkable. So the earliest party nominations in 1796 and 1800 happened when <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/presidency-of-the-United-States-of-America/Selecting-a-president#ref792989">members of Congress started consulting in informal meetings called caucuses</a> to select nominees before returning home for fall campaigns. It was an efficient means of achieving party unity under the circumstances. There was, however, <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-conventions-today-are-for-partying-and-pageantry-not-picking-nominees-142246">little room for voter involvement</a>.</p>
<p>Between 1800 and 1830, states built better roads and canals. Travel times were shortened, and the cost of travel shrunk. The Post Office, <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/postal-service-act-regulates-united-states-post-office-department">established in 1792</a>, delivered printed material cheaply, subsidizing a booming national press. Americans were able to gather across vast distances, had better information and depended less on word of mouth from political leaders. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People gathered in a large auditorium with a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352989/original/file-20200814-20-sk2zan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An engraving of the 1860 Democratic convention in Charleston, South Carolina.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00652812/">Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of conventions</h2>
<p>With better informed citizens, the caucus system was in disarray by the 1820s. It was fully discredited in the eyes of many voters and political elites in 1824 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1824#ref1113452">when less than half of the members of the Republican party caucus attended the meeting</a>. <a href="https://millercenter.org/president/jqadams/campaigns-and-elections">Multiple nominees were instead selected by state legislatures</a>, creating a crisis of legitimacy for the dominant <a href="https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mjm&fileName=05/mjm05.db&recNum=591">Republican party</a>, which historians now refer to as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Democratic-Republican-Party">Democratic-Republican party</a>.</p>
<p>In 1828, Andrew Jackson won the presidency, based in part on a nomination from the Tennessee state legislature. After his victory, he engineered <a href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/main/polcon/democraticindex.html">the first national convention of a major party in 1832</a>, at which the Jackson faction of the Republican party called itself the Democratic party. </p>
<p>The convention did not officially re-nominate Jackson, but it did choose his running mate, Martin Van Buren. In the process it demonstrated that a national convention could in fact gather larger numbers of delegates, who themselves represented a larger number of voters, and could therefore be more democratic.</p>
<p>This convention model dominated American politics for the next hundred years. </p>
<p>Convention sites followed the progress of American transportation networks westward. The first six Democratic national conventions were held in Baltimore due to its convenient location and its position on the border of slave and free states. But as railroads made travel less expensive, the parties moved west. In 1856 Democrats convened in Cincinnati, in 1864 in Chicago, and in 1900 in Kansas City, Missouri. </p>
<p>Republicans met in Chicago as early as 1860 and as far west as Minneapolis by 1892. To appeal to different regions, both parties moved their conventions every four years – a tradition maintained to this day.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man gives a speech." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352992/original/file-20200814-18-atwdmh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franklin Roosevelt accepts his party’s presidential nomination in person at the 1932 Democratic convention in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Illinois-United-/7b97a801fae6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/168/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conventions in the 20th century</h2>
<p>Another technological shift came in 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt became the first major party nominee to address a convention in person. </p>
<p>Until then, custom dictated that the nominee stayed home under the pretense of not being too ambitious for office. Some months later, a committee of delegates would visit the nominee to “inform” him of his candidacy. Only then did the nominee give brief prepared remarks and start actively campaigning. </p>
<p>Roosevelt blew through that custom by catching a plane from New York to the Democratic convention site in Chicago and <a href="https://www.fdrlibrary.org/dnc-curriculum-hub">addressing the delegates the day after his nomination</a>. “Let it be from now on the task of our party to break foolish traditions,” Roosevelt intoned, before calling for a “new deal.” </p>
<p>Traveling to Chicago was not just a metaphor for Roosevelt. By dominating the attention of the convention at precisely the time voters were paying attention to it, FDR signaled his intention to not only be a nominee of the party, <a href="https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_united_states_history/99/">but the leader of the party</a>. And it made his transformative political message part of the news.</p>
<p>Television further changed the conventions. For much of the 19th century, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/04/contested-presidential-conventions-and-why-parties-try-to-avoid-them/">presidential nominations were contested by multiple candidates</a>, causing difficult convention battles; the 1924 Democratic convention went through 103 rounds of balloting before settling on John W. Davis.</p>
<p>Starting in 1948, conventions permitted television cameras, which reduced the incentives for endless ballots. Instead, conventions became <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-conventions-today-are-for-partying-and-pageantry-not-picking-nominees-142246">visible celebrations of party unity</a>. </p>
<p>In 1972, the parties started using primary elections to select delegates pledged to vote for specific candidates, so the delegate count was publicly known <a href="https://www.uvm.edu/%7Edguber/POLS125/articles/piroth.htm">before the conventions were gaveled to order</a>. Conventions became days-long infomercials for the nominee. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people in straw hats wave signs at a stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352986/original/file-20200814-14-f28qo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the 1968 Democratic convention, people wore straw hats and waved signs to indicate which candidate they supported.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/democratic-party-members-holding-placards-in-support-of-news-photo/1208801316">Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Unconventional conventions</h2>
<p>The pandemic has struck at just the right moment for another technological shift. Network television news – the medium through which most 20th century conventions were viewed – <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/05/fewer-americans-rely-on-tv-news-what-type-they-watch-varies-by-who-they-are/">commands less voter attention</a>. </p>
<p>Moving the convention spectacle online allows the party to control their message more effectively – as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/01/politics/rnc-charlotte-press/index.html">Republican efforts to exclude journalists from the proceedings highlight</a>. </p>
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<p>Democrats recorded some speeches in advance, allowing the party to release focused content compatible with the pace and packaging of social media. As voters share and comment on that content, <a href="https://www.demconvention.com/get-involved/">using official party social media graphics and Zoom screens</a>, it could nurture a sense of party identification, and of virtual participation. </p>
<h2>What comes next?</h2>
<p>The GOP’s wavering between different locations, and the Democrats’ reliance on remote speakers, will lead some to ask whether a centralized convention is even necessary. In the future, why not have multiple convention sites across the country, with multiple political figures speaking to smaller physical audiences? </p>
<p>Events like that could enable the party to target narrow groups of voters more effectively. As parties experiment with the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90537463/the-democratic-convention-can-be-anything-this-year-we-asked-designers-for-their-wildest-concepts">potential of digital technologies</a>, it seems likely that they will find some of them more attractive than cavernous convention halls and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-straw-boater-the-unofficial-hat-of-political-conventions-1469033845">outdated swarms of straw hats</a>.</p>
<p>But that approach would have disadvantages. Social media spectacles would eliminate spontaneous reactions from delegates that give home viewers a sense of the mood – whether dissension from the party line, contagious enthusiasm or even the striking power of a memorable speech line. Democrats have acknowledged that the online format in 2020 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-head-to-convention-united-against-trump-but-expecting-conflict-once-the-election-is-over/2020/08/15/a6754a88-de41-11ea-809e-b8be57ba616e_story.html">will deprive supporters of Bernie Sanders the stage they had in 2016</a>. As much as specialized events might draw in some voters by targeting narrow groups, they might also allow parties to create more divisive appeals in ways that evade broader scrutiny. And virtual conventions can make it easier for party leaders to obscure proceedings from journalists and the public.</p>
<p>It’s not yet clear how this moment will reshape nominating conventions. But party leaders will adapt to the technological opportunities it presents, and find new ways to make conventions work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Klinghard has in the past received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>This year’s technological adaptations may signal a permanent shift in the way nominating conventions meet and the way voters watch them – but it’s not the first time.Daniel Klinghard, Professor of Political Science, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1414222020-07-23T12:16:27Z2020-07-23T12:16:27ZWhat are political parties’ platforms – and do they matter?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347369/original/file-20200714-139854-is4bzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3290%2C2190&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, a delegate holds up a copy of the Democratic Party Platform.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/DEM-2016-Convention/ed5715656ffd41b9be31425e777738a3/80/0">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political parties’ platforms – their statements of where they stand on issues – get little respect. President Donald Trump mused recently that he might shrink his party’s platform from 66 pages in 2016 to a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/republican-platform.html">single page in 2020</a>. Even as far back as 1996, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole claimed he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/08/23/do-party-platforms-really-matter/">had never read his party’s platform</a>. Nor do Democratic Party platforms – such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-propose-new-draft-to-party-platform-revealing-shifts-in-focus-since-2016/2020/07/22/e9fc9062-cbbe-11ea-bc6a-6841b28d9093_story.html">draft released July 22</a> – usually make the best-seller list.</p>
<p>If Trump wants to slash it, and Dole didn’t even read it, why should you care about a party’s platform? As a scholar of U.S. party politics, I have seen that <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Party-Politics-in-America-17th-Edition/Hershey/p/book/9781138683686">party platforms are a vital clue</a> about which groups hold real power in the two major national parties. When they are formally published after the parties’ conventions in August, they’ll also help you predict what the national government will actually do during the next four years.</p>
<h2>Where does the platform come from?</h2>
<p>Each national party has a platform-writing committee, composed of major party figures and representatives of interest groups closely linked with the party. They do their work in the spring and summer prior to the presidential conventions.</p>
<p>When there’s a first-term president, his or her party’s committee gets its direction from the White House; presidents don’t want to run for reelection on a platform other than their own. This year, the Republican platform is very much under the control of <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-calls-for-new-and-updated-republican-party-platform">Donald Trump and his closest advisers</a>. </p>
<p>For parties challenging a sitting president – such as the Democrats in 2020 – the <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/05/dnc-public-hearings-platform-223663">platform committee holds hearings around the nation</a>, in person and online, to hear from the public. In reality, those who testify are almost always leaders of interest groups. The party’s presidential nominee will also have great influence over its contents. </p>
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<p>Writers of party platforms must combine the stirring – though very abstract – values that brought supporters to the party with the specifics desired by the party’s allied interest groups as the price of their loyalty.</p>
<p>This means simultaneously touting rhetorical key points such as strong national defense, fair treatment of all people or a great educational system, while making particular promises, such as pledges to nominate right-wing judges, ban specific policing methods or reduce particular emissions that cause climate change. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2014.959503">The strongest party factions</a> can get their goals written directly into the text of the party platform.</p>
<p>As a result, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/presidents-promises-from-campaign-pledge-to-presidential-performance/oclc/11290254">platform writers have to navigate</a> the tension between candidates’ desire for a broad appeal to voters and interest groups’ insistence on explicit commitments to their goals. Typically, most of the platform’s language involves stirring appeals to the broader electorate. The rest is a laundry list of specific promises to organized groups.</p>
<p>Once it’s written, the platform is adopted by the party’s quadrennial national convention. In times past, fierce debate ensued over some platform elements, such as abortion. Now, the <a href="https://www.pearson.com/us/higher-education/program/Abramowitz-Polarized-Public-The/PGM59757.html">parties are so polarized</a>, and the national conventions have become such a public display of unity and enthusiasm, that they try to avoid debate about the platform.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/347374/original/file-20200714-22-1p8xm4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Printed copies of the Republican Party platform for 2016 were given to attendees at the party’s national convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-formal-printed-2016-republican-platform-sits-on-the-news-photo/577067300">Jeff Swensen/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What happens then?</h2>
<p>The party leadership can’t do anything to enforce its platform – and can’t even expel candidates who reject or only weakly support the platform. That’s because party leaders don’t choose the party’s candidates; the voters do, in primary elections, and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Party-Politics-in-America-17th-Edition/Hershey/p/book/9781138683686">voters don’t necessarily heed the advice</a> of national party leaders. </p>
<p>The classic example of this is Rep. Phil Gramm, elected by voters in his Texas House district as a Democrat in 1978. Gramm sided with Republican House members to support President Ronald Reagan’s policies, and his Democratic colleagues punished him by taking away his seat on the prized House Budget Committee. Undaunted, Gramm returned to his district, and ran for his old seat as a Republican. He won. The fact that Gramm had been elected as a Democrat but rejected a key plank in the Democratic national platform apparently <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/1996/0206/06101.html">didn’t bother his voters at all</a>.</p>
<p>There are even times a national party would rather that its candidate in a particular district not support the party’s platform. For instance, if Democratic voters in a swing congressional district have chosen to nominate a candidate who is pro-life, then that’s probably the type of Democrat most likely to win in that district. It wouldn’t benefit national party leaders to fight for a pro-choice Democratic candidate who would likely lose that district to a Republican.</p>
<h2>Signals of coming action</h2>
<p>Platforms may not bind elected officials, and they may go unread by almost everybody. Yet they do have meaning. Those who do read them can make a good guess about how a party’s elected officials will behave in office. Researchers find that when a party controls Congress and the White House, its <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/1963632">spending priorities reflect issues emphasized in its platform</a> most of the time. Most presidents make some effort to carry out their campaign promises; when they fail, at least until 2017, it’s normally been due to congressional opposition.</p>
<p>Changes in the platform are often significant indicators of change in the party. When the 1980 Republican platform <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/07/26/what-we-get-wrong-about-southern-strategy">dropped the party’s longstanding commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment</a> and adopted strong anti-abortion language, that was clear evidence of the shift toward right-wing conservatism that now characterizes the Republican Party.</p>
<p>So you may never read a party platform, but don’t dismiss it as fluff; at least <a href="http://doi.org/10.2307/2108616">since World War II</a>, it can tell you a lot about <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janfeb-2012/campaign-promises/">how the party will spend your tax dollars</a> if it wins power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marjorie Hershey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Party platforms are a vital clue about which groups hold real power in the two major national parties, and can help predict what the government will actually do.Marjorie Hershey, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1208222019-08-12T11:12:49Z2019-08-12T11:12:49ZMaking money off of politics isn’t new – it was business as usual in the Gilded Age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287418/original/file-20190808-144847-1i0o9yh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., whose profits go to the president and his family business.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Shutdown-Trump-Hotel/51343a7da0f2432f8a6b567bc668f024/683/0">AP/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the political leader “Boss” Tweed was arrested in New York on corruption charges in the fall of 1871, among his many assets was a luxury hotel. </p>
<p>Located up the road from City Hall, the <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e0-d422-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">Metropolitan</a> was a 400-room, five-story building described at its 1852 opening as a site that “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030313/1852-09-02/ed-1/seq-7/">fairly dazzles and bewilders the visitor, and causes him to think of the palaces of ‘Arabian Nights’ tales</a>.” Tweed had acquired the hotel at the peak of his political power. He renovated the Italian Renaissance-style building at great expense, and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=nzMoAc-iew0C&dq=boss+tweed+ackerman&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFu7PK0fPjAhWHQc0KHeeMAD8Q6AEwAHoECAEQAg">he turned over management to his son</a>, Richard. </p>
<p>The city’s elite patronized the hotel from day one, and it was the epicenter of business and politics in New York. Tweed held court there when <a href="https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/boss-tweed-and-the-tammany-republicans">managing public affairs</a> as the head of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qZCrAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=machine+made+tammany+hall&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiis4bQ0vPjAhV2Ap0JHeUTAmAQ6AEwAHoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=machine%20made%20tammany%20hall&f=false">Tammany Hall</a>, a powerful Democratic political machine.</p>
<p>His <a href="https://southwestcollection.wordpress.com/2014/08/18/from-my-dear-brother-william-the-rise-and-fall-of-william-m-tweed-family/">downfall</a>, however, transformed the Metropolitan into an unlikely monument to scandal. Boss Tweed had bankrupted the city by embezzling funds while building himself a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12062">vast business empire</a>. </p>
<p>Today, politics is again a place to make a fortune, at least for one prominent politician. Shortly before winning the 2016 election, Donald Trump celebrated the <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?417489-101/trump-international-hotel-grand-opening">grand opening</a> of Trump International Hotel, down the street from the White House. In 2018 alone, the D.C. hotel generated <a href="https://oge.app.box.com/s/e32qrrfvyxk9cgrvteo7diicwd11pac4">US$40 million</a> in revenue by drawing heavily from a clientele with government business. </p>
<p>Unlike other modern presidents, Trump <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-finance/trump-says-wont-divest-from-his-business-while-president-idUSKBN14V21I">refuses to divest</a> from personal business, raising the question where the search for profit ends and his public service begins. </p>
<p>But if the situation appears new, it is hardly unprecedented. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287420/original/file-20190808-144862-1qaridc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boss Tweed, depicted by cartoonist Thomas Nast in Harper’s Weekly in 1871.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed#/media/File:Nast-Boss-Tweed-1871.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Party business</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.americanyawp.com/text/16-capital-and-labor/">Gilded Age</a>, which lasted from the end of the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, was a period when wealth flowed from success in politics. </p>
<p>Leaders in both parties became powerful and rich, building personal influence, crafting alliances, generating money and constructing the political machines necessary to win elections – all while serving in government. </p>
<p>When researching my <a href="https://jeffbroxmeyer.com/CURRICULUM-VITAE">upcoming book</a>, “Electoral Capitalism: The Party System In New York’s Gilded Age,” I found political fortunes that were quite impressive. Politicians in New York and elsewhere made themselves into some of the country’s earliest millionaires. </p>
<p>During that period, what qualified individuals for party leadership was their ability to use the electoral system to finance a range of personal and political ventures.</p>
<p>For example, Tweed’s political ascent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781416000451">spawned an entire financial sector</a> owned and managed by <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-0636-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">Tammany Hall</a>. </p>
<p>As state senator, he supported the legislative charter of new savings banks headed by himself and other Tammany politicians. The capital of these banks came from city funds which <a href="https://www.biography.com/political-figure/boss-tweed">Tweed controlled from his seat on the Board of Audit</a>, corporate donors looking for political favors, religious charities receiving public subsidies and immigrant workers, who were encouraged to deposit their earnings. These Tammany banks helped to make Tweed the third-largest landowner in New York City. </p>
<p>The banking house Morton, Bliss & Company was built upon marketing U.S. government debt, a lucrative privilege secured by party connections in the Grant administration. <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/6b0efb70-ce0a-9c8e-e040-e00a18065a96">Levi P. Morton</a> then used his <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=orRPAAAAMAAJ&q=greenberg+financiers+and+railroads&dq=greenberg+financiers+and+railroads&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLiO763PPjAhVSG80KHclaDpwQ6AEwAHoECAIQAg">private firm</a> to manage the personal finances of the day’s most influential Republicans, from Roscoe Conkling to James Blaine, before becoming himself a congressman, vice president and governor. </p>
<p>Morton’s firm sold U.S. debt in every administration from the 1870s onward, with the exception of the Democratic President Grover Cleveland, before <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Levi_Morton.htm">selling to J.P. Morgan in 1909</a>. Morton went into retirement as one of the wealthiest men of the day. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287423/original/file-20190808-144868-rj4zus.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">1881 cartoon, ‘This is not the New York Stock Exchange, it is the patronage exchange, called U.S. Senate.’ Roscoe Conkling and Thomas Platt are to the right of Chester Arthur, who was president.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3g06400/">Library of Congress, J.A. Wales artist</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gilded democracy</h2>
<p>The politicans’ newfound wealth – mansions on Fifth Avenue or buying race tracks – generated a public outcry over the so-called “bogus aristocracy.” </p>
<p>In language common among working-class reformers, “John Swinton’s Paper” called upon voters to “up and cleanse” public office of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=unipBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA222&lpg=PA222&dq=filthy+slugs,+roaches,+and+bloated+spiders+that+fatten+on+the+stealings&source=bl&ots=_PH-1mAYxN&sig=ACfU3U2Ss7k6n7rpGlMIOtv6_G4GQvfWCw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil2sro9_PjAhWFtVkKHY8mCpcQ6AEwAHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=filthy%20slugs%2C%20roaches%2C%20and%20bloated%20spiders%20that%20fatten%20on%20the%20stealings&f=false">“filthy slugs, roaches, and bloated spiders that fatten on the stealings”</a> from taxpayer money and corporate lobbies. </p>
<p>Where did the public till end and the private purse begin? It was not so clear. Virtually no laws, state or federal, existed to prevent self-dealing or embezzlement. </p>
<p>Private property was often treated as sacrosanct, however acquired, and politicians were skilled in making arguments about their fortune’s legitimacy. Fernando Wood became a millionaire by flipping public land during his several mayoral terms. Yet, throughout a long career Wood <a href="https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1406&context=gc_etds">maintained he was a respectable “merchant</a>.” Critics questioned his reputation, but they could do little else. </p>
<p>Personal enrichment was encouraged through public office-holding because profits fueled party politics. Then, as now, elections were expensive. Party committees were always in need of cash infusions. Few questions were asked about the origins of donated funds. </p>
<p>This period was also the <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101896960">spoils system’s heyday</a>, when parties rewarded their supporters by giving them jobs and contracts. </p>
<p><a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/7c5cbbdb-e68d-02a9-e040-e00a180668a2">Thomas Platt</a> climbed the party ladder to the presidency of the <a href="http://drc.ohiolink.edu/handle/2374.OX/1031">U.S. Express Company</a> by securing it generous federal subsidies as a congressman. Platt’s family <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/02/29/100244625.pdf">took advantage</a> of sweetheart company loans and paid themselves huge salaries. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287424/original/file-20190808-144868-phso30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reformer George William Curtis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-703d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">New York Public Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An old question now</h2>
<p>Is politics a legitimate way to become wealthy? Historical debates help to consider the role of money in politics today. </p>
<p>During the 19th century’s final decades, mass movements of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2WijQs72ET0C&lpg=PP1&dq=greenbacks%20and%20goldbugs&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">farmers and laborers protested</a> loudly against the growing wealth of politicians, as living conditions for them worsened. </p>
<p>Reformers from across the political spectrum believed the sudden growth of political fortunes was part of the problem – a “conspiracy of officeholders” is what <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-703d-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99">George William Curtis</a>, head of the Civil Service Reform Association, called it.</p>
<p>Still, no easy consensus was reached on the proper remedy. </p>
<p>Where reformers did agree was in the view that democracy was more than just another place to do business. Otherwise, competition shifts among politicians from a struggle for votes to a scramble over dollars, and the only policies advanced are those that line the pockets of party leaders and their patrons.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeff Broxmeyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Trump has been assailed for making money from his Washington hotel that’s frequented by those who want to curry favor with him. Turns out, getting rich off politics is an old tradition.Jeff Broxmeyer, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, University of ToledoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/773622017-05-11T01:05:03Z2017-05-11T01:05:03ZTrump will likely win reelection in 2020<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/168807/original/file-20170510-21613-wumx0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump seen through a TV camera's viewfinder in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on April 29, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Patrick Semansky</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html">Americans don’t like Trump</a>. </p>
<p>Trump will most likely be reelected in 2020. </p>
<p>How can both of these statements be true? Here’s how:</p>
<p>Even when people are unhappy with a state of affairs, they are usually disinclined to change it. In <a href="https://www.academia.edu/26781261/From_Political_Liberalism_to_Para-Liberalism_Epistemological_Pluralism_Cognitive_Liberalism_and_Authentic_Choice">my area of research</a>, the cognitive and behavioral sciences, this is known as the “default effect.” </p>
<p>Software and entertainment companies <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-power-of-default-settings-1487266744">exploit this tendency</a> to empower programs to <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/the-windows-10-privacy-settings-you-need-to-change-right-now-1301257">collect as much data as possible from consumers</a>, or to keep us glued to our seats for “<a href="https://digiwonk.gadgethacks.com/how-to/prevent-binge-watching-by-disabling-netflixs-sneaky-auto-play-feature-0160581/">one more episode</a>” of a streaming show. Overall, only <a href="https://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/09/14/do-users-change-their-settings/">5 percent of users</a> ever change these settings, despite widespread concerns about how companies might be <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/">using collected information</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Save-Everything-Click-Here-Technological/dp/1610393708">manipulating people’s choices</a>. </p>
<p>The default effect also powerfully shapes U.S. politics.</p>
<h2>Four more years</h2>
<p>Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to four consecutive terms as president of the United States, serving from the Great Depression to World War II. To prevent future leaders from possibly holding and consolidating power indefinitely, the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxii">22nd Amendment</a> was passed, limiting subsequent officeholders to a maximum of two terms.</p>
<p>Eleven presidents have been elected since then. </p>
<p>Eight of these administrations won a renewed mandate: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.</p>
<p>Even the three single-term aberrations largely underscore the incumbency norm.</p>
<p>Had Ford won in 1976, it would have marked three consecutive terms for the GOP. If George H.W. Bush had won in 1992, it would have meant four consecutive Republican terms. </p>
<p>Since 1932, only once has a party held the White House for less than eight years: the administration of Democrat Jimmy Carter from 1976 to 1980.</p>
<p>Therefore, it’s a big deal that <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/25/america-is-getting-used-to-trumps-insanity/">Trump is now the default</a> in American politics. Simply by virtue of this, he is likely to be reelected. </p>
<h2>Popularity is overrated</h2>
<p>Trump won his first term despite record low approval ratings, triumphing over the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx">marginally less unpopular</a> Hillary Clinton. He will probably be able to repeat this feat if necessary.</p>
<p>The president continues to enjoy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/17/donald-trump-is-doing-just-fine-with-the-only-people-he-cares-about-and-needs/">staunch support</a> from the voters who put him in the White House. He has raised millions of dollars in small donations for reelection, pulling in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/us/politics/trump-raises-millions-for-2020-re-election-bid.html">twice as much money as Barack Obama</a> in his first 100 days. And he’s <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/07/president-donald-trump-uses-election-laws-to-push-agenda/101262288/">already putting that money to use</a> running ads in key states that trumpet his achievements and criticize political rivals.</p>
<p>Although most don’t like or trust Trump, polls show he seems to be <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/17/the-myth-of-the-disillusioned-trump-voter/">meeting or exceeding Americans’ expectations</a> so far. In fact, an ABC News/ Washington Post survey suggests that if the election had been held again in late April, Trump would have not only won the Electoral College, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/23/trump-voters-dont-have-buyers-remorse-but-some-hillary-clinton-voters-do">but the popular vote as well</a> – despite his declining approval rating.</p>
<p>To further underscore this point, consider congressional reelection patterns.</p>
<p>Since World War II, <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_kyle_kondik/incumbent_reelection_rates_higher_than_average_in_2016">the incumbency rate</a> has been about 80 percent for the House of Representatives and 73 percent for the Senate. Going into the 2016 election, <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html">Congress’ approval rating</a> was at an abysmal 15 percent. Yet their incumbency rate was actually higher than usual: 97 percent in the House and 98 percent in the Senate.</p>
<p>As a function of the default effect, the particular seats which happen to be open this cycle, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/12/these-3-maps-show-just-how-dominant-republicans-are-in-america-after-tuesday/">Republican dominance of state governments</a> which has allowed them to draw key congressional districts in their favor – it will be <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/03/09/for-democrats-won-easy/UwXqnHIC3uqrhkaSbSsouN/story.html">extremely difficult</a> for Democrats to gain even a simple majority in the Senate in 2018. The House? <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-democrats-wont-win-the-house-in-2018-68037">Even less likely</a>. </p>
<h2>Trump … or who?</h2>
<p>Due to the default effect, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/23928377/Syria_Contextualized_The_Numbers_Game">what matters most</a> is not how the public feels about the incumbent, but how they feel about the most likely alternative.</p>
<p>Carter didn’t just have low approval ratings, he also had to square off against Ronald Reagan. “The Gipper” was well-known, relatable and media-savvy. Although the Washington establishment largely wrote off his platform with derisive terms like “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/270292.stm">voodoo economics</a>,” the American public found him to be a visionary and inspirational leader – awarding him two consecutive landslide victories. </p>
<p>Trump’s opposition is in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/01/why-did-trump-win-new-research-by-democrats-offers-a-worrisome-answer/">much worse shape</a>. The Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging voters <a href="http://www.academia.edu/31849643/The_Democratic_Party_is_Facing_a_Demographic_Crisis">for the better part of a decade</a>. Democrats are viewed as being more “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/democratic-party-out-of-touch-obama-wall-street-speech/524784/">out of touch</a>” with average Americans than Trump or the Republicans. Yet key players in the DNC still resist making substantive changes to the party’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-need-a-real-debate-about-foreign-policy/2017/04/25/2b08ddd2-2919-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html">platform</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/magazine/democratic-party-election-trump.html">strategy</a>. Hence it remains unclear how Democrats will <a href="http://fiatsophia.org/2017/04/20/trump-opponents-need-stop-playing-hands/">broaden their coalition</a>, or even prevent its <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/democrats-say-they-now-know-exactly-why-clinton-lost-in-2016-20170501-gvwn28.html">continued erosion</a>.</p>
<p>Trump is not likely to follow in Carter’s footsteps. Other modern precedents seem more plausible.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/12175/Bushs-ReElection-Prospects-Unclear-From-Historical-View.aspx">Truman had an approval rating of around 39 percent</a> going into the 1948 election, yet managed to beat challenger Thomas Dewey by more than two million in the popular vote, and 114 in the Electoral College. The president had been holding raucous rallies in key states and districts, growing ever-larger as the race neared its end. However, the media disregarded these displays of support because his base <a href="http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/sampling01.htm">was not well-captured</a> in polls. As a result, his victory came as a total surprise to virtually everyone. <a href="http://fiatsophia.org/2016/11/10/trumps-victory-not-surprising/">Sound familiar</a>?</p>
<p>One could also look to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/09/08/donald-trump-praised-by-former-president-nixon/">Trump’s harbinger</a>, Richard Nixon. Throughout Nixon’s tenure as president, he was <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/nixon-and-the-media-109773">loathed by the media</a>. Temperamentally, he was <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/08/nixons-resignation-40-years-later/375447/">paranoid, narcissistic and often petty</a>. Nonetheless, Nixon was reelected in 1972 by one of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/7/newsid_3697000/3697098.stm">largest margins in U.S. history</a> – winning the popular vote by more than 22 percentage points and the Electoral College by a spread of over 500. </p>
<p>Of course, Nixon ultimately resigned under threat of impeachment. But not before he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-45-years-of-conservative-rulings-heres-what-a-liberal-supreme-court-would-do/2016/02/19/efa63ad4-d589-11e5-b195-2e29a4e13425_story.html">radically reshaped the Supreme Court</a>, pushing it dramatically rightward for more than a generation. Trump is already <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/04/upshot/how-gorsuchs-influence-could-be-bigger-than-his-single-vote.html">well on his way</a> in this regard. </p>
<p>And like Nixon, Trump is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/22/donald-trump-president-impeached-liberals-history-process">unlikely to be impeached</a> until his second term, if at all. </p>
<p>Impeachment would require a majority in the House. Removing Trump from office would require at least a <a href="http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/2/essays/100/standards-for-impeachment">two-thirds vote in the Senate</a> as well. </p>
<p>Nixon faced impeachment because, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/nixon-and-trump-then-and-now/">even after his landslide reelection</a>, Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. Clinton was impeached in 1998 by a Republican-controlled House, but was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate.vote/">acquitted</a> in the Senate because the GOP controlled only 55 seats. </p>
<p>Without massive Republican defections, Democrats will not be in a position to impeach Trump, let alone achieve the two-thirds majority required in the Senate to actually remove him from the Oval Office. The 2018 elections will not change this reality.</p>
<p>In other words, <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/09/is-this-trumps-saturday-night-massacre-dont-count-on-it-215119">we can count on</a> Trump surviving his first term – and likely winning a second. </p>
<p>Consider the example of George W. Bush, who, like Trump, assumed the presidency after losing the popular vote but <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/would-al-gore-have-won-in-2000-without-the-electoral-college/">taking the Electoral College</a>. His tenure in office <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/04/18/why-presidential-candidates-like-trump-campaign-as-isolationists-but-like-trump-govern-as-hawks/">diverged wildly</a> from his campaign commitments. He was prone to <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/bushisms/2004/05/the_misunderestimated_man.html">embarrassing gaffes</a>. He was widely panned as <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/threat-inflation-threat-deflation-the-bushes-and-robert-byrd/273754/">ignorant and unqualified</a>. Forced to rely heavily upon his <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/us/politics/elder-bush-says-his-son-was-served-badly-by-aides.html">ill-chosen advisors</a>, he presided over some of the <a href="http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/21/who-was-the-least-successful-foreign-policy-president/">biggest foreign policy blunders</a> in recent American history. Many of his actions in office were <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/opinion/31bamford.html">legally dubious</a> as well. Yet he won reelection in 2004 by a healthy 3.5 million votes – in part because the Democrats nominated John Kerry to replace him.</p>
<p>Without question, Kerry was well-informed and highly qualified. He was not, however, particularly <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/on_the_trail/2004/11/why_kerry_lost.html">charismatic</a>. His cautious, pragmatic approach to politics made him seem <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaign/echoes-of-a-1972-loss-haunt-a-2004-campaign.html">weak and indecisive</a> compared to Bush. His long tenure in Washington exacerbated this problem, providing his opponents with plenty of “<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/taking-flip-flops-seriously/">flip-flops</a>” to highlight – suggesting he lacked firm convictions, resolve or vision. </p>
<p>If Democrats think they will sweep the 2020 general election simply by nominating another “grownup,” then they’re almost certainly going to have <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/the-democrats-2020-nightmare">another losing ticket</a>.</p>
<p>For Trump to be the next Jimmy Carter, it <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/30/13795728/nancy-pelosis-victory-ryan">won’t be enough</a> to count on his administration to fail. Democrats will also have to produce their own Ronald Reagan to depose him. So far, the prospects don’t <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/17/everyone-loves-bernie-sanders-except-democratic-party">look great</a>.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been corrected. The original version had the wrong year for George H.W. Bush’s reelection bid.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Musa al-Gharbi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liberals who are counting down the days until Election Day 2020 may need to revise their math. Getting rid of a sitting president isn’t easy to do.Musa al-Gharbi, Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/734212017-03-06T02:17:25Z2017-03-06T02:17:25ZHow our morals might politically polarize just about anything<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157942/original/image-20170222-6406-rd8l2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/awNz2o">DonkeyHotey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When news breaks about wrongdoings of our favorite politician, the other side inevitably argues that we have a scandal on our hands. We like to think that our superior grasp of logic is what enables us to reason through and reject the other side’s concerns.</p>
<p>But, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.12.007">a series of three studies</a> I recently published suggest such decisions are not just the result of reasoning. Rather, feeling moral aversion toward political opponents compels us toward positions that help our team “win.” This is true even if it means adopting positions with which we’d otherwise disagree. </p>
<p>Here’s the effect in a nutshell: Imagine that you walked into an ice cream shop on Election Day. You discover that the shop is filled with supporters of the presidential candidate you oppose, and you find supporters of that candidate morally abhorrent. When you get to the front of the line, the worker tells you all of the other customers just ordered red velvet – normally your favorite flavor. </p>
<p>My studies demonstrated that when asked to order, you are likely to feel an urge to stray from your favorite flavor toward one you like less, politically polarizing an otherwise innocuous decision.</p>
<h2>Whatever they think, think the opposite</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/157946/original/image-20170222-6406-anj14h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can you read this?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/gp/148043179@N08/708g8X">Emily Costello/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To understand what’s meant by “urge” here, it helps to understand the Stroop effect. In this classic experiment, people see a single word and are asked to name the color in which the word is printed. When the color and the word match – for example, “red” printed in red – the task is easy. When the color and the word are incongruent – for example, “red” printed in blue – the task is harder. People feel an impulse, or “urge,” to accidentally read the word. This urge interferes with the task of naming the color, and what should be a simple task becomes oddly difficult.</p>
<p>A theory of morality put forth by Jonathan Haidt suggests that morals <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ItuzJhbcpMIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&ots=H2dbIIdw0y&sig=Ii0QjwOmawdZ7IW5YPPeuwxfOdI#v=onepage&q&f=false">“blind” people to alternative viewpoints</a> such that even considering the other side’s opinions is taboo. With that theory in mind, I thought that moral aversion might be a social cause of unproductive urges similar to urges experienced in the Stroop task. That is, just as people in the Stroop task feel the impulse to incorrectly read the word, I thought that strong moral beliefs might cause people to feel impulses to make decisions that maximize their distance from people they believe have different morals.</p>
<h2>How the test worked</h2>
<p>Here’s how I tested it:</p>
<p>I first had people do several Stroop trials to make them aware of what that urge to make an error feels like.</p>
<p>Next, I asked people six fairly trivial consumer choice questions, such as preference for car color (forest green vs. silver) or vacuum brand (Hoover vs. Dirt Devil). </p>
<p>Here’s the twist: After answering each question, participants were told how a majority of other participants answered the same question. The identity of this majority group was random. It could be either a group that everyone belonged to (for example, Americans) or a more politically charged group (for example, Trump supporters, Clinton supporters or white supremacists).</p>
<p>Finally, I showed participants the set of questions a second time, and asked them to simply state their previous answer a second time. I also asked participants to rate their urge to change their answer – similar to the urge to make an error in the Stroop test.</p>
<p>This should have been straightforward. </p>
<p>Participants were not asked to evaluate the majority answer or reconsider their opinion in any way. Still, just like the interference felt in the Stroop task, knowing the majority response caused people to feel an urge to give the wrong answer.</p>
<p>When participants belonged to the majority group, they reported heightened urges to make an error when they had previously disagreed with the majority. Despite just being asked to repeat what they said a moment ago on a fairly trivial opinion question, they felt a conformist urge.</p>
<p>Similarly, when participants had strong moral distaste for the majority group, they reported heightened urges to make an error when they agreed with the group. In other words, participants’ initial responses were now morally “tainted,” and, even for these rather inconsequential questions, they felt an urge to abandon that response and distance themselves from their opponents. This urge made the trivial task of stating their opinion again slightly more difficult. </p>
<h2>‘Hive mind’ and passive effects</h2>
<p>As America is <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/7-things-to-know-about-polarization-in-america/">more ideologically divided now</a> than any other point in history, these results illuminate two things about the psychology behind political polarization. </p>
<p>First, people might think they are able to use their reasoning to decide whether, say, a minimum wage increase will have positive or negative consequences. However, moral impulses have likely already nudged people toward disagreeing with their opponents before any deliberative thinking on the issue has begun.</p>
<p>Second, the effects observed here are likely a passive process. Participants did not want to feel urges to make an error in the Stroop task, and they likely did not want to feel urges to contradict their own opinions in my studies. The urges just happen as a result of a morality-driven psychology.</p>
<p>These results suggest that efforts to bring those on the fringe closer to the middle will likely fall on deaf ears. A more optimistic interpretation is that polarization might have its roots in unintentional partisan urges. While there is no shortage of moral issues that lead to polarization, polarization does not necessarily result from the malice of those involved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Randy Stein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our morals compel us toward helping our team win. This can turn even otherwise innocuous decisions into ‘us vs. them.’Randy Stein, Assistant Professor of Marketing, California State Polytechnic University, PomonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/659742016-09-24T11:24:18Z2016-09-24T11:24:18ZWhy Labour Party members still back Jeremy Corbyn as their leader<p>So Labour members (and £25 supporters) still want Jeremy Corbyn to be their leader, even after the turmoil of the past year. Our <a href="https://esrcpartymembersproject.org/">extensive survey of members</a> helps explain why he scored such a significant win over Owen Smith.</p>
<p>We spoke to members just after the party’s 2015 general election loss and again in May 2016, after Corbyn won the 2015 leadership election. By that time, Labour’s membership had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jan/13/revealed-how-jeremy-corbyn-has-reshaped-the-labour-party">almost doubled</a> from 201,293 in May 2015 to more than 388,000. </p>
<p>This second survey means we can <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/middle-class-university-graduates-will-decide-future-labour-party">separate out</a> the new full members that joined before January 2016 – the members who were still allowed to vote in the latest leadership contest. It shows just how wide the gap is between old and new members on several key issues. </p>
<h2>Leadership as a driver for membership</h2>
<p>Labour members had been <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/54068-2/">longing for someone like Corbyn</a> before he was even on the ballot paper. A good deal of latent dissatisfaction, as well as demand for a leader who was more socially liberal and economically left wing than Ed Miliband was already bubbling under in May 2015.</p>
<p>But old members and new members take a very different view of how important the party leadership is. Fewer than half (42.5%) of old members said they had been driven to join because they believed in the party leadership. More than three quarters (76.5%) of the post-May 2015 members said this had been a driving factor. This number goes up further to eight out of ten (82%) among those who joined during the 2015 leadership election and to virtually everyone who joined after September 2015 (95.6%) when Corbyn had already become leader.</p>
<p>Since the party’s leadership is such a core factor for them, it’s clear that the new members were never very likely to vote for Smith. Their belief in Corbyn is the very reason many of them joined.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=267&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139055/original/image-20160924-29886-lli4ex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica Poletti</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>This “Corbynmania” can perhaps be partially explained by how estranged many new members feel from the political elite. A significantly higher proportion (almost 11 percentage points more than older members) feel politicians don’t care what people like them think. They are also less likely to feel as though they can influence political affairs. While 82% of old members felt positive about this, only 69% of new members felt the same way.</p>
<p>The large increase of like-minded members, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/mass-membership-labour-social-movement-community?CMP=share_btn_tw">social movement-like</a> euphoria and the social media hype that have developed around Corbyn’s leadership may well have addressed the perceived divide between members and leaders, and given hope to many of new members of bridging a gap which is otherwise perceived as unbearably wide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=217&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139056/original/image-20160924-29912-1418wzy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screen Shot at.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica Poletti</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ideological shift</h2>
<p>Older and newer members also take different views of where the Labour Party sits on the political spectrum. On a scale from 0 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right), in May 2015 older members position the Labour party at 3.5 and place themselves at 2.4. On the other hand, in May 2016 new members position the Labour party at 2.8 and place themselves at 1.9. Of the new members, one in ten (10.4%) consider themselves a member of Momentum, the association supporting Corbyn’s leadership, and (at 1.38) they are even further to the left than others.</p>
<p>Moreover, a third (31.4%) of the new members are not completely new to the party, since they had been Labour members in the past. When asked (in an open question) why they had left the party and then rejoined, two thirds of them explicitly mentioned either Tony Blair, the Iraq War or New Labour policies being too far to the right as the main reason they left in the first place. Corbyn offers the opportunity to shift the ideological balance of the party back to its pre-New Labour era.</p>
<p>However, Corbyn is also well liked because he is perceived by new members as better understanding the importance of the voice of the people than previous leaders – something they rate as extremely important.</p>
<p>In fact, some 40% of the new members think that the current Labour leadership respects ordinary members “a lot”. Only 16% of older members believed that was the case in May 2015. The difference is striking, and this may be another reason why the membership was keen to stick with Corbyn.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=269&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139057/original/image-20160924-29886-1ojix5v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica Poletti</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>New members also don’t seem fussed about having a leader who is good at communicating. Only 35.2% rated it as the most important quality in a leader, compared with 49.5% of old members. Owen Smith’s strengths in this regard, then, probably did him little good.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139058/original/image-20160924-29886-vq1udm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Monica Poletti</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>But what about the voters?</h2>
<p>The ability to unite the party and to appeal to the average voter – qualities Smith supporters claimed their man had – do not seem to be tremendously relevant for either old or new members, although they were more important for the former than the latter.</p>
<p>Yet, it is precisely the need to appeal beyond the membership to the electorate itself that presents the biggest challenge for the Labour Party under Corbyn’s continued leadership.</p>
<p>Our data show that there is an <a href="http://www.smf.co.uk/%EF%BB%BFask-the-expert-revolting-peasants-labours-changing-membership-who-they-are-and-what-they-want/">obvious gap</a> between the views of Labour members and previous Labour voters when it comes to social and moral (as opposed to economic) issues, such as immigration or law and order.</p>
<p>In principle, this divide is not unbridgeable. But the bridge can only be built if new members will accord as much weight to the opinion of ordinary voters as the new leader has accorded to the opinion of grassroots members.</p>
<p>This need not mean abandoning social media campaigning, which pro-Corbyn new members are particularly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tim-bale/jeremy-corbyn-labour-membership_b_10713634.html">keen in pursuing</a> even if it too often tends to preach the converted. It would imply, however, investing more time and effort in the old-fashioned, time-consuming (and at times nerve-racking) activity of talking on the doorstep to ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>It might be boring old politics but it this is still the best way to carry on a genuine two-way conversation with those who hold different views. And it will decide Labour’s fate at the next election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monica Poletti receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). </span></em></p>An extensive survey shows just how much the party has changed over the past year.Monica Poletti, ESRC Postdoctoral Research Assistant, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/610602016-06-20T10:07:27Z2016-06-20T10:07:27ZWhy Michael Gove is a real contender for next Tory leader<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126610/original/image-20160614-22388-14wpnkf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Johnson has left the building.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Birchall / PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain’s “Thatcherites” are an incredibly cohesive bunch. To the despair of historians, they do not write things down. Tory politicians prefer to eschew laborious meetings and minutes in favour of informal dining clubs at which future strategy is debated and plotted. Theirs is a close network of friendships.</p>
<p>This informal club is committed to keeping the Thatcherite flame alive, promoting the beliefs of its hero, Margaret Hilda Thatcher. Rightly or wrongly, given Thatcher’s cautious approach to Europe, securing Britain’s departure from the EU is regarded by the vast majority of Thatcherites as furthering one of her greatest aims. Mere ministerial careers may have to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-iain-duncan-smith-resignation-registers-a-six-on-the-political-richter-scale-56574">sacrificed</a> to achieve this goal.</p>
<p>The ultimate prize (beyond Brexit) is putting a Thatcherite back in charge of the Conservative leadership. Previous mistakes must not be repeated. Iain Duncan Smith must realise that while he had the right ideological credentials, his disastrous leadership of the party from 2001 to 2003 cruelly demonstrated that he lacked the necessary communication skills with which to transmit the Thatcherite message.</p>
<p>The key question in 2016 is who that Thatcherite candidate should be. Former London mayor Boris Johnson and justice secretary Michael Gove are the most high-profile options. There’s also former defence secretary Liam Fox and current business secretary Sajid Javid, or even employment minister Priti Patel.</p>
<p>What must be avoided is a scenario in which the Thatcherites field more than one candidate, as happened in 1997 when Peter Lilley, Michael Howard and John Redwood all put their hats in the ring for the party leadership. Redwood emerged top of the Thatcherite pile but came a distant third place behind William Hague and Kenneth Clarke in the overall contest.</p>
<h2>The roots of Thatcherism</h2>
<p>Arguably, the bungled leadership contest of 1997 need never have happened, if Michael Portillo had the courage to stand against John Major in 1995. Portillo’s greatest supporter was Eric Forth, the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, famous for his brightly coloured ties and sometimes outrageous views. Forth, who died in 2006, tended to judge everyone on their ideological purity. As far as he was concerned, the parties’ leaders – especially David Cameron – and many and Tory MPs – were all considered weak or feeble or even “pinko” for compromising their Thatcherite principles.</p>
<p>In 1997, Forth became chairman of campaign group <a href="http://www.conwayfor.org/">Conservative Way Forward</a>. From this position he penned the nine principles of Conservatism – nationhood, freedom, democracy, security, a sense of community, capitalism, enterprise, choice and deregulation. Even Redwood has commented that “none of us were Conservative enough for Eric”.</p>
<p>Towards the end of his life, Forth became convinced that Britain’s nationhood and identity were under threat – and that this threat could only be addressed by leaving the EU. His last public engagement before his death was the launch of the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/1516794/Tory-MPs-sign-up-to-anti-EU-campaign.html">Better Off Out</a> group.</p>
<p>Forth never forgave Michael Portillo for his attempts to modernise the party. He claimed “this touchy-feely stuff is just rubbish, total rubbish”. This was the point at which modernisers including Portillo and Francis Maude split with traditionalists such as Forth and Redwood.</p>
<p>Ever since that historic rift, the Thatcherite Right has searched in vain for the ideal candidate. Forth rallied behind David Davis, who flunked his chance to stand against Michael Howard in 2003 and who disappointed against David Cameron in 2005. On that occasion, much of the traditionalist right preferred Liam Fox, who finished a strong third behind Cameron and Davis. But surely Fox, though statesmanlike and still popular with the party members, carries too much <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/02/less-shameless-world-liam-fox-s-career-would-have-ended-2011">personal baggage</a> to become leader.</p>
<p>Much hype surrounds the possibility of Johnson becoming leader. But isn’t he too much of a risk? He has no real ministerial experience and has never proved himself in the House of Commons at the dispatch box. What the Thatcherites need is someone to heal the 2000 rift between the modernisers and the traditionalists. And such a person is Michael Gove.</p>
<p>It is Gove, who, like Forth, is a consistent libertarian and believes that human happiness depends on the absence of state restraint. And it is Gove who is the only leading MP from David Cameron’s <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1511473/Who-are-the-Notting-Hill-Set.html">Notting Hill set</a> to support Brexit.</p>
<p>Nor is there much doubt about Gove’s current popularity among Conservative members. He has consistently topped the <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2016/06/gove-tops-our-next-party-leader-survey-for-the-third-month-running.html">Conservative Home leadership poll</a>, way ahead of Fox and Johnson.</p>
<h2>Then again</h2>
<p>There are chinks in Gove’s armour, though – not least his own admission that he is “<a href="http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/features-march-12-will-gove-go-all-the-way-to-no-10-iain-martin-michael-gove-conservatives-david-cameron">constitutionally incapable</a>” of being Conservative leader, apparently lacking the “special extra quality you need”.</p>
<p>Perhaps he lacks the superficial good looks of a Tony Blair or a Cameron (these things are subjective, of course), and may end up feeling, like the late Robin Cook, that he is too ugly to become leader. And who knows, he may already have made some Faustian pact with his rival, Johnson.</p>
<p>While Gove is on good terms with his former boss Rupert Murdoch, significant repair work is needed with the powerful Tory donor <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-1254992/Ephraim-Hardcastle-After-insulting-comments-Tories-Michael-Gove-Lord-Ashcroft-really-chummy.html">Michael Ashcroft</a>. However, even Ashcroft has praised Gove’s performance in the referendum campaign. </p>
<p>Nor should Theresa May be ruled out as a rival. The home secretary has deliberately kept out of the referendum debate – keen to emerge as the compromise candidate, capable of healing a divided party in the event of a split between two camps led by George Osborne and Johnson. This option will never be tolerated by the Thatcherite right, however. It was May who famously called for the Conservatives to shed their image as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/oct/08/uk.conservatives2002">nasty party</a> in 2002. Forth would not stand for such self-loathing.</p>
<p>Writing shortly after Forth’s death in March 2006, Gove praised him as a man who stood out against yet more government legislation because “almost all of it would increase the power of the state, the size of government, the tax burden on the country and the regulatory load on the individual”.</p>
<p>In other words, there is a clear, ideological line linking Gove with Forth, arguably the most ardent Thatcherite of them all. When Gove chose to back Brexit on grounds of principle, Forth was no doubt waving his order paper enthusiastically from the backbenches in the sky.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Stuart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>He claims to not have what it takes to be leader, but only the justice secretary stands a chance of giving the Thatcherites what they crave.Mark Stuart, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377872015-03-02T06:21:47Z2015-03-02T06:21:47ZHow can we better represent women in parliament?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73074/original/image-20150225-1761-11wi6en.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stale, male and pale.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent report from the <a href="http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Sex-and-Power-2014.pdf">Hansard Society</a> revealed that a girl born today will be drawing her pension before she is equally represented in Westminster, or has an equal chance of being elected to it.</p>
<p>Nearly 100 years since women were first allowed to sit in parliament, fewer in total have been elected to the House of Commons than the number of men currently sitting. And with women accounting for just <a href="http://www.ukpolitical.info/female-members-of-parliament.htm">23% of the current population of MPs</a>, things seem to be getting worse rather than better. In 1997, the UK ranked 20th in the international table of women’s representation in parliament and has now fallen to 74th place.</p>
<h2>What is representation?</h2>
<p>The representation of women in parliament is part of a wider issue. There is also a lack of regional and local voices as well as MPs from ethnic minorities, younger MPs, MPs from some religions and classes and even those speaking certain languages. Not everything that could be represented is equally important, though.</p>
<p>It might seem obvious that the representation of women in parliament should be in direct proportion to their numbers in the population, but before reaching that conclusion, we have to decide what representation is and what sort of representation we have in mind. Is it the voice of women itself? Is it their voice on women’s issues? Their perspective on all issues? Again, what is most important, the proportion of women in parliament or their proportion in important roles? </p>
<p>Would it be desirable for women to comprise more than 50% of MPs? Is the real issue the promotion of women’s rights and legitimate concerns independently of who is promoting them? After all, women might vote the “wrong” way and men the “right” way on some matters.</p>
<p>“Principal-agent representation” is where someone acts as the agent of another – as a barrister represents a client in court, for example. On this view, there is no need for the agent to be the same as, or like, the principal. The agent is briefed by the principal and acts on their behalf. A man with a strong interest in women’s issues might, according to this line of thinking, be just as good as a woman in promoting women’s issues in parliament. </p>
<p>The alternative view is known as “microcosmic representation”. This is the idea that a parliament should have, broadly, the same composition as the population it represents. On this view, actually being there matters. If one accepts, even for a moment, that it matters whether women are present in the House of Commons or not, the fundamental point has been conceded: at least some element of microcosmic representation is needed.</p>
<p>Oddly, those who argue strongly for the principal-agent view tend to see nothing wrong with male dominance of parliament, but at the same time get worried when one extols the virtues of a female majority. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t doubt the sincerity of those who seek to represent those unlike themselves. The point is that there is a limit: a limit of experience and sensibility. Despite their best efforts, if the composition of parliament is entirely different from the composition of the country, representatives will be unable to achieve the necessary breadth of understanding and viewpoint. If this point is accepted, an element of microcosmic representation is required. </p>
<h2>Making a difference</h2>
<p>One option for resolving this problem might be to make equal representation a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2012.02364.x/abstract">constitutional requirement</a>. This could be done with parallel elections in which men and women are elected separately. Voters would have two votes and there would be two seats per constituency, one man, one woman. In a <a href="http://archive.fairvote.org/factshts/partylst.htm">party list system</a> (such as the one used for EU elections), it could be mandated that equal numbers of male and female candidates be chosen and the <a href="http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/blog/gender-parity-a-case-for-fair-voting-and-party-rules/">zipper method</a> of alternating them in the list used. </p>
<p>But while countries using party list systems usually have more woman MPs, it doesn’t follow that the system automatically leads to this. Neither does it follow that the single-member plurality system used for UK parliamentary elections should be modified to give more equal representation. The issue is solely whether suitable numbers of women are chosen as candidates for winnable seats. </p>
<p>All-women shortlists are sometimes seen as the solution. But there is a corresponding danger that the lack of representation won’t be considered (still less addressed) across the full range of seats either in principle or practice. </p>
<p>People often express the view that candidates should be chosen solely on their merits rather than their gender. This objection would be valid if there were a level playing field (from childhood on) and no entrenched sexism. But if there is entrenched prejudice (or second order prejudice: “we would love to choose a woman but the electorate wouldn’t vote for her”) then the view collapses. That’s precisely because not everyone in society has had an equal opportunity to develop the abilities which constitute the merits on which parliamentarians are chosen. </p>
<p>There is no single best solution to this problem. Although much can be done within the existing system, as already suggested, alternative systems provide more scope for enhancing women’s representation. The adoption of a party list system, or a mixed system (as in Germany) which combines party list and single-member constituencies, would certainly make a considerable difference.</p>
<p>Of course, so much depends on political will. Of the major parties, Labour is ahead of the crowd while the Conservative party is blowing hot and cold on the issue. With the election looming in May is there any chance of a major change? The short answer is no, because the major parties have already chosen virtually all of their candidates and, on current projections, the proportion of women in the UK parliament will not increase.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Connelly is affiliated with Green Party.</span></em></p>There are many different ways to try to boost numbers – but they all require at least some effort.James Connelly, Professor of Politics, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/373282015-02-08T08:32:26Z2015-02-08T08:32:26ZLiberal leadership tensions give neglected backbenchers a voice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71393/original/image-20150208-28578-1o0rdim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why is it that, in recent years, federal party MPs have reached the conclusion that the only way to deal with an unpopular leader is by deposing them?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Nikki Short</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is difficult to pinpoint a specific reason to explain the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/liberal-leadership-crisis">leadership crisis</a> presently gripping the federal Liberal Party. Why is it that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a leadership spill only 17 months after having <a href="https://theconversation.com/prime-minister-abbott-the-master-of-opposition-gets-his-chance-17855">led his party to government</a>? Why is it that individuals within the Liberal party room are willing to trigger a leadership spill when such actions proved so <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-end-to-the-rudd-gillard-battle-15370">deeply destabilising</a> for the federal Labor Party in 2010 and 2013?</p>
<p>Some put it down to an <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/govt-to-tackle-headon-claims-it-is-unfair-and-say-borrowing-against-our-kids-is-the-most-unfair-act-of-all-20150103-12gtum.html">“unfair”</a> set of policies; others – including cabinet minister Andrew Robb – say the government <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-failed-to-prepare-community-for-reforms-robb-37231">failed to prepare</a> the public for its agenda. And then there’s the leader himself.</p>
<p>Abbott, if media reports are to be believed, is arrogant, a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/06/time-is-running-out-for-tony-abbotts-chaotic-and-dysfunctional-government">poor communicator</a>, a <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/irate-prime-minister-tony-abbott-implodes/story-fni0fha6-1227210997829">bully</a>, a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/long-life-in-politics-and-still-no-lessons-learnt/story-fn53lw5p-1227211011598">micro-manager and poor listener</a>, and hopelessly captured by his ministerial staff – in particular by his high-profile chief of staff, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/control-freak-peta-credlin--accused-of-pulling-coalition-strings-20131204-2yqte.html">Peta Credlin</a>.</p>
<p>If some of these grievances sound familiar it is because they are. A similar array of complaints was <a href="http://www.news.com.au/opinion/rudd-outburst-an-abuse-of-power/story-e6frfs99-1225778072502">levelled</a> against former Labor leader Kevin Rudd, including by his <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/national-affairs/kevin-rudd-quits-as-foreign-minister/story-fnccyr6m-1226278757491?nk=938f7c2918c02a9b6224e48f8bbeb478">then-colleagues</a>.</p>
<p>While there are times when a party room must take decisive action against its leader, it is not always apparent to the casual observer what finally pushes them to initiate drastic action against (what have been) relatively inexperienced leaders. Why is it that, over the last five years, federal party MPs have reached the conclusion that the only way to deal with an unpopular leader is by deposing them? </p>
<p>The recent spate of leadership instability at the federal level may prove to an aberrant phenomenon – simply coincidental. Leaders from both parties have been stood aside by the parliamentary wing because they were simply not up to the task. </p>
<p>However, this theory is a little too neat, particularly in light of similar leadership woes in the <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/nt-chief-minister-terry-mills-dumped-as-leader-by-phone-report/story-e6frgczx-1226596593915">Northern Territory</a> and, to a lesser extent, in Victoria under former Liberal premier <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-06/baillieu-stands-down-as-victorian-premier/4557014">Ted Baillieu</a>.</p>
<p>Another explanation might lie in the internal dynamics of what is an increasingly fractious modern party room. </p>
<p>Backbenchers – two of whom, Luke Simpkins and Don Randall, will <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/the-liberals-of-the-west-who-forced-the-vote-against-prime-minister-tony-abbott-20150206-1386vd.html">move the motion</a> for a leadership spill on Monday – have always been anxious about their prospects for re-election, especially those who hold lower house electorates. Over time, however, defending seats has become a much more difficult task for many MPs because of the increasingly volatile nature of the electorate.</p>
<p>While the levels of partisanship in Australia is one of the highest among established democracies, it is showing signs of underlying fragility. A <a href="http://assda.anu.edu.au/aestrends.pdf">report</a> compiled by political scientists at the ANU found that the proportion of voters who always voted for the same party has dropped from 72% in 1967 to 45% in 2007.</p>
<p>The decline in partisanship affects the ability of major party MPs to retain their seats. Formerly safe and fairly safe seats are proving to be more difficult for incumbents to hold. </p>
<p>One indication of this is in the growth in the number of lower house seats that are decided on second preferences as against first preference votes. In 1993, 43% of seats, or 63 out of 147, were decided on preferences compared to 64% in 2013, or 96 out of 150.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/71394/original/image-20150208-28573-tiif70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1114&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Backbench MP Luke Simpkins will move for a Liberal leadership spill on Monday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The uncertain electoral fate confronting MPs is aggravated by their inability to influence the election strategy and the policy direction of their party. </p>
<p>Modern election campaigns are centralised, standardised and tightly constructed around the party leader. Once the leader is installed in government, they become even more remote from party backbenchers. The leader is placed behind a firewall of staffers whose first and only priority is to shield the leader from media, public servants, ministers and backbenchers. It seems this is true in Abbott’s case.</p>
<p>As a result, it has become increasingly difficult for MPs to remain masters of their own electoral fate. An MP can work tirelessly for their electorate but that is not always sufficient to ensure their re-election. MPs cannot easily disentangle their electoral survival from that of their leader.</p>
<p>The stakes for modern MPs are in many respects greater than what they were for their predecessors. Increasing numbers of MPs appear to have made politics their first career as against their second career. To lose their seat not merely jeopardises their livelihood but also cuts short a much-coveted parliamentary career.</p>
<p>In the face of such political and electoral uncertainty, the only way that a backbencher can exert any type of influence over the party is through the selection (and the removal) of the leader.</p>
<p>We should expect, therefore, that as control over policy and election campaigns becomes more and more centralised, and the parliamentary wing is dominated by professional politicians, leadership spills will become even more commonplace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Narelle Miragliotta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It is difficult to pinpoint a specific reason to explain the leadership crisis presently gripping the federal Liberal Party. Why is it that Prime Minister Tony Abbott is facing a leadership spill only…Narelle Miragliotta, Senior Lecturer in Australian Politics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/365602015-01-21T16:31:37Z2015-01-21T16:31:37ZToo big and too small: Lib Dems just can’t win in a crowded field<p>The UK’s smaller political parties have been showered with attention of late. We’ve seen Green Party leader Natalie Bennett interviewed on the BBC’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7EnaZPlqDA">Andrew Marr Show</a> – one of the most coveted media platforms for election hopefuls, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ukip">UKIP</a> leader Nigel Farage continues to provide good copy and good telly to most news organisations, setting the political agenda along the way.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party and the Democratic Unionist Party are taken seriously by journalists as potential members of a future coalition government.</p>
<p>As this belated but welcome media celebration of multi-party politics goes on, one group in parliament is starting to realise that it is no longer the special guest at the party. The Liberal Democrats may be the worst hit by the explosion of multi-party politics.</p>
<p>And as ironic as this turn of events might be, it was perhaps unavoidable. The party has long been paying the price for having joined a coalition government with the Conservatives and now the 2015 general election is taking place in a very crowded electoral field. It is both insider and outsider – and a loser on both fronts.</p>
<h2>Looking for a coalition?</h2>
<p>In the run-up to the May 7 election, Nick Clegg is trying to position the Liberal Democrats as the natural party of coalitions. He and his front bench team are doing all they can to demonstrate that the UK is a fairer, more prosperous country as a result of their participation in the coalition government.</p>
<p>But it is not clear if this strategy will pay off electorally. There is no denying that the Liberal Democrats managed to restrain the Conservatives on a number of policies. The problem is that this restraining role is invisible to most voters.</p>
<p>And after almost five years in government, the Liberal Democrats have very little to show in terms of their achievements. Apart from a few successes with some small policies – such as bringing in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings">pupil premium</a> and increasing personal tax allowances to £10,500 – the party has little to boast about and quite a lot to hide.</p>
<p>It was not just the u-turn on tuition fees that made the Liberal Democrats unpopular. There were dozens of other small betrayals. The bedroom tax, the approach to the public deficit, nuclear energy are just some of the problems that caused thousands of supporters to desert the party.</p>
<p>Since 2010 the party has lost all but one of its 11 MEPs, roughly 40% of its councillors and, if the current trend in voting intentions is confirmed on May 7, between a half or a <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-of-the-pollsters-labour-by-a-whisker-the-polling-firms-place-their-bets-for-may-9955994.html">third of its MPs</a>.</p>
<p>A recent opinion poll also revealed that voters do not trust Nick Clegg. Asked if they would expect to get back a £10 note lent to a party leader, just 44% said the Liberal Democrat leader would return it. The prime minister David Cameron had a slightly better result, with only 49% saying they would expect him to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/11356236/Voters-dont-trust-the-party-leaders-enough-to-lend-them-a-tenner-poll-finds.html">pay back his loan</a>. </p>
<h2>Fighting for the spotlight</h2>
<p>To combat this doomsday scenario, the Liberal Democrats have been investing in an all-fronts electoral campaign. They will rely on pavement politics and will take advantage of the free publicity that the media coverage will provide – handy, considering how empty the party coffers are.</p>
<p>This is a tried-and-tested formula that has worked wonders for the party in the past but the odds are stacked against it this time. The competition for media attention will be fierce and the party does not benefit from the novelty factor like the Greens or UKIP. To a certain extent, joining the Conservatives in a coalition government transformed the Liberal Democrats into an establishment party.</p>
<p>However, as the country’s third party they will not enjoy the same media attention as Labour and the Conservatives. Nor are they winning the fight for attention with the small parties that enjoy the full privilege of being in opposition.</p>
<p>The problem is that the narrative of the 2015 election is about the explosion of multiparty politics and the uncertainty it brings. This means that the media will be paying far more attention to both Labour and the Conservatives, and then to the parties that seem to be breaking the mould of British politics. In this scenario, the Liberal Democrats will struggle to not to be squeezed out from a very crowded and competitive electoral field.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The UK’s smaller political parties have been showered with attention of late. We’ve seen Green Party leader Natalie Bennett interviewed on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show – one of the most coveted media platforms…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Communications, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/364422015-01-20T06:18:54Z2015-01-20T06:18:54ZGreen surge will be tested as grassroots are exposed to media spotlight<p>The Green party recently reported a <a href="http://greenparty.org.uk/news/2015/01/15/combined-uk-green-parties%E2%80%99-membership-passes-ukips/">surge in membership</a>, with 2000 new members in 24 hours. Now, the Scottish, English and Welsh, and Northern Irish Greens have accumulated almost 44,000 members between them. This makes them the fourth largest party in the UK behind Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP. </p>
<p>On the face of it, an increase in party membership seems like a good thing. But an increase in numbers, especially at this rate, does have the potential to cause issues for a party like the Greens.</p>
<h2>A vital asset</h2>
<p>Members are assets to a party’s leadership. For a start, they bring in – and are themselves – resources. Money is the most obvious benefit that a member brings to a party. Members will pay a fee each month towards their membership, and can be approached by their local branch to contribute to fundraising events and campaign activities. This is a vital resource for a political party when it comes to hiring staff, producing campaign materials and securing adverts. </p>
<p>Members may also contribute time and labour to their party. Some members will become very active by taking part in doorstep and telephone canvassing, delivering leaflets, and getting involved in awareness events such as street stalls. </p>
<p>Less active members will still be likely to talk to their friends and family about the benefits of voting for their party, and are likely to share information on their social media networks. </p>
<p>Increased membership also engenders legitimacy: parties with a burgeoning rank-and-file cannot be as easily dismissed as “extreme” or “a fringe movement”. For a party like the Greens, which is not affiliated with vested interests like trade unions or business organisations, the resources that members bring are crucial to the vibrancy, vitality and electoral success of the party.</p>
<h2>Causing friction</h2>
<p>For all their attractions, party members can also become liabilities. Both in the UK and internationally, Green parties pride themselves on their internal democracy. The Green parties have a very inclusive policymaking process when compared to most other parties in the UK. These features may be attractive to new members, making them feel included and valued. </p>
<p>But this inclusiveness also provides a platform for some members to pursue a policy strategy that could lose votes, leading to friction between grassroots activists and party leaders. Although new members will have noble intentions, they might lack the political experience to understand what sort of approach is most likely to gain the party votes. </p>
<p>An increase in membership will also inevitably lead to a marked increase in the number of individuals who wish to stand for election. This can lead to internal tensions, with more experienced activists feeling disillusioned and frustrated by the fact that their longer-term investment in the party is being undervalued and taken for granted by newer members. </p>
<h2>Pragmatists v fundamentalists</h2>
<p>Academic <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Green_Parties_and_Political_Change_in_Co.html?id=r8eBAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">literature on Green parties</a> suggests a fundamental tension at the heart of this party type is between so-called pragmatists and fundamentalists. This is common feature in parties of the left and mass-membership parties more generally: a divide between those who are willing to compromise on ideological purity in order to increase the chances of electoral success, and those who believe that doing so betrays the principles and ideology of the party. </p>
<p>The German Greens, for example, experienced a key strategic debate in the 1980’s between two such factions. Faced with an attractive political opportunity in the shape of seats in the German Bundestag, the Greens, over a period of time, shed their single-issue status to become a more professionalised political party. </p>
<p>With electoral success came pressure to continue and maintain this success which resulted in the party reforming some of its internal structures in order to professionalise its policymaking capacity. This created tensions within the party, famously leading one leader to state that the party was becoming “Eine Stinknormale Partei” - a perfectly ordinary party. </p>
<p>If the UK Greens win more seats in the House of Commons this year, or even make deals with a future minority government for policy concessions, the media spotlight will shine on them like never before. Any internal disputes over policy and strategy that arise will likely find their way to the front pages. </p>
<p>Though this membership increase is a largely positive development for the Greens, it has the potential to lead to problems. But as things stand, the Greens can look to the year ahead as the one that could signal a true electoral breakthrough for the party despite the notoriously uncompromising <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/modern/uk_gov_politics/elect_vote/revision/1/">first-past-the-post</a> electoral system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig McAngus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Green party recently reported a surge in membership, with 2000 new members in 24 hours. Now, the Scottish, English and Welsh, and Northern Irish Greens have accumulated almost 44,000 members between…Craig McAngus, Research Fellow, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363842015-01-19T12:19:37Z2015-01-19T12:19:37ZCould the Pub Landlord really call time on Nigel Farage?<p>There is much to ponder about comedian Al Murray’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/video/2015/jan/14/al-murray-the-pub-landlord-challenge-nigel-farage-general-election-video">decision to run</a> in the British general election. Murray – as his <a href="http://thepublandlord.com/">Pub Landlord</a> character – will stand against UKIP’s Nigel Farage in the constituency of South Thanet. So, will Murray’s presence will help or hinder Farage?</p>
<p>As the charismatic leader of a controversial party that has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21614073">gained a significant public profile</a> and following, and as someone with relatively long-standing ties to the area, Farage might well feel that Murray is a very minor distraction. </p>
<p>Farage has more experience than most of fending off challenges to his politics and his policies. Crucial in that has been his undoubted capacity to deflect or neutralise those challenges by appealing to his otherness; his status as an outsider to the Westminster set.</p>
<p>But Murray represents a rather different proposition. Murray’s “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jan/18/pub-landlord-al-murray-election-strategy-drink-nigel-farage-william-hague-under-the-table">policy position</a>” is that Farage hasn’t gone far enough: the Pub Landlord pledges that the UK will leave Europe by 2025 and the edge of the solar system by 2050, and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11351834/Al-Murray-election-QandA-Id-make-smoking-in-pubs-compulsory.html">make smoking compulsory in pubs</a> in the meantime. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tADgYkAfXro?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A party political broadcast on behalf of FUKP.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This taking of the perceived values of UKIP to a logical (if absurd) conclusion is, of course, an attack on Farage. It allows Farage’s critics a way into pointing out that the difference between him and Murray is small enough (or ambiguous enough) that both should be rejected.</p>
<p>By equating Farage with a comedian, critics can challenge Farage’s push of recent months to become more respectable. As I have discussed <a href="http://blogs.surrey.ac.uk/politics/2014/12/11/hunkering-down-for-the-general-election/">elsewhere</a>, 2015 marks a critical juncture for UKIP – failure to secure a foothold in the Commons might prove catastrophic for its survival. If Murray lands a hit, then the consequences will be felt far beyond South Thanet.</p>
<p>However, Murray’s strategy is a risky one. Precisely because of the ambiguity between the two, voters might decide that Murray is actually a reinforcement of Farage’s rhetoric and his worldview. Murray’s spoiler requires a degree of political engagement from voters that looks rather ambitious: parody only works if you realise it’s parody.</p>
<p>This is even clearer if we consider who is going to be affected by Murray’s presence. A first group will include those who already dislike Farage’s politics, and who were not going to vote for him. For these people, Murray will be a source of amusement, but not a credible voting proposition: instead they will turn to one of the more conventional candidates, who stand a stronger chance of election. Those candidates are not going to be helped by the media-friendly Murray encroaching on their access to the press. </p>
<p>A second group are those who see Murray as a chance to stick up a different set of fingers to the establishment – the “wouldn’t it be a laugh to have a comedian as our MP?” crowd. Let’s leave aside questions of whether Murray could ever sit in the Commons in character, and instead wonder how many of these people would previously have voted for Farage. Maybe some, but probably not many. The disaffection and disillusion that Farage and UKIP have fed upon is much stronger than this.</p>
<p>The third group is potentially the most worrying, even if it also the smallest. These are the people who take Murray at face value and think his “policies” are the real deal, and so switch their votes to him. Here there’s nothing more that can be said than that there’s no accounting for people and in a democracy you have to respect voter’s choices, whatever they might be.</p>
<p>In all three cases, the impact is going to be small and unlikely to much change Farage’s position. This will be made all the more strong by Farage’s capacity to call Murray’s bluff on the question of immigration.</p>
<p>It would be reasonable to suggest that if Murray is asked about immigration, he’ll have to deflect it into something equally trivial, so opening up the space for Farage to talk about “the real problems” (my words, not his) that affect constituents.</p>
<p>Just as Murray is trying to weaken Farage by mocking him, so Farage will be using that to highlight his seriousness. How South Thanet reacts to the tussle will be one of the more entertaining spectacles of the campaign.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Usherwood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is much to ponder about comedian Al Murray’s decision to run in the British general election. Murray – as his Pub Landlord character – will stand against UKIP’s Nigel Farage in the constituency of…Simon Usherwood, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363222015-01-16T14:12:13Z2015-01-16T14:12:13ZGeneral election leaders’ debate should be more diverse, indyref research suggests<p>Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted on the inclusion of the Green party if televised leaders debates are to go ahead as part of the general election. While <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30808252">Cameron’s motives</a> could lie anywhere between the principle of fairness to political self interest, he may in fact have a point. </p>
<p>Research shows that the public has a clear appreciation of the role and input of a diverse range of leaders in televised political debates. It suggests that the inclusion of the Greens and possibly other parties into the debates for the general election may well be beneficial for broadcasters, parties, and viewers alike.</p>
<p>A collaborative team from Robert Gordon University’s <a href="http://www.rgu.ac.uk/images">IMaGeS</a> and <a href="http://www.rgu.ac.uk/research/research-institutes/institute-for-innovation-design-and-sustainability">IDEAS</a> Research Institutes mapped out in real time the Twitter response to three televised debates before the Scottish referendum. Our research offers a unique insight into how television audiences reacted to a multi-party panel, and the inclusion of the Green party, in a nationally televised political debate only a few months ago. </p>
<h2>Referendum lessons</h2>
<p>In the lead up to the Scottish independence referendum, there were two debates between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling, and one “town hall” style debate on September 2, with a panel of six debaters. As well as Patrick Harvie from the Scottish Greens and Douglas Alexander from Labour, the panel included four women – the Scottish National Party’s Nicola Sturgeon; Scottish Labour’s Kezia Dugdale; the Scottish Conservatives’ Ruth Davidson, and actor Elaine C Smith. </p>
<p>In our Twitter sampling, 79% of the comments made about Patrick Harvie were positive, in contrast to, for example, 58% of comments about Nicola Sturgeon, 21% about Douglas Alexander or 12% about Ruth Davidson. The only other person to come close to Harvie was Elaine C Smith, with 68% of the comments about her being positive. </p>
<p>Comments about Harvie focused on his ability as a debater, describing him as “eloquent”, “unflappable” and “a fresh breath of air”. Tweeters also praised his contribution to the campaign as a whole. Indeed, even before he spoke, his contribution was being anticipated by some tweeters: “Yay, it’s Patrick next!”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"506852343204544512"}"></div></p>
<p>One of the reasons must be that – unlike the other politicians on the panel – the Greens were not burdened with the realities of having been in power in either Scotland or the UK, as the other parties involved were. In effect, Harvie benefited in a similar way to that of Nick Clegg in the general election political debates of 2010.</p>
<p>The Twitter sample was also extremely positive about the diversity of viewpoints on display in this debate, commenting favourably on the range of opinions and argument featured and the civilised style of discussion. It was held up in contrast to the combative style of the two earlier head-to-head debates featuring Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling. </p>
<p>“Pleasingly more temperate than the Salmond Darling clashes,” one user said. “#ScotDecides one of best political TV debates for many a year. Informed, diverse, courteous and genuinely participatory,” said another. Within our Twitter sample, the Salmond-Darling debates were criticised for being too “shouty” and full of childish point-scoring.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"506907463447498754"}"></div></p>
<h2>More women</h2>
<p>Several tweeters suggested that one of the reasons for the more pleasant experience was the inclusion of women in the debate. “Finding this easier to listen to. Maybe coz more women involved,” one Tweeter said. Of course, the inclusion of Natalie Bennett of the Green Party (and possibly also Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood) in the general election debates would ensure the inclusion of both sexes this time around. There were also many positive comments about the fact that Harvie and Davidson are bisexual/gay. </p>
<p>As well as ensuring a good viewing experience for audiences, the minor parties have much to gain from appearing in the upcoming debates. Both Kezia Dugdale and Nicola Sturgeon were placed firmly in the limelight, and subsequently rose to become leader and stand-in leader for their respective parties. One discussion between them during the first debate was referred to as “a preview of First Minister’s Questions 2016”.</p>
<p>Overall, our sample of tweets showed that the diversity of the panel for this last referendum debate produced the most informative and enjoyable debate on the topic. Our research shows that including minor parties with a more diverse range of leaders in the televised debates will make for a better experience for viewers, and perhaps even for the debaters themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Pedersen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Prime Minister David Cameron has insisted on the inclusion of the Green party if televised leaders debates are to go ahead as part of the general election. While Cameron’s motives could lie anywhere between…Sarah Pedersen, Professor, Department of Communication, Marketing and Media, Robert Gordon UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343892014-11-20T06:06:37Z2014-11-20T06:06:37ZIt’s surprisingly easy to oust David Cameron<p>Much speculation has surrounded Ed Miliband’s position as Labour leader since word of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/clueless-labour-plotters-need-to-learn-the-rules-of-opposition-34168">campaign against him</a> has spread. But less attention has been focused on David Cameron’s position as Conservative leader and prime minister.</p>
<p>He might seem to be under less pressure than his rival but there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/cameron-in-crisis-as-tories-glass-jaw-exposed-again-by-huge-commons-rebellion-13884">grumbles on the backbenches</a>. And it is far easier to oust a leader from the Conservative party than from Labour.</p>
<p>There is a long way to go before Cameron’s position could be considered to be really under threat. The economy is improving, the party is level with Labour in the <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9068">opinion polls</a>, and the prime minister enjoys a significant advantage over Miliband on <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1365302/milibands-approval-ratings-hit-all-time-low">net approval ratings</a>. But Conservative rules on removing sitting leaders provide any critics with a clear and achievable method of evicting him.</p>
<p>Cameron is facing opposition from members of his own party, particularly when it comes to Europe. And the Rochester and Strood by-election has been another blow. Talk has turned to more potential defections now that former Tory Mark Reckless has been returned to parliament as a UKIP MP. </p>
<p>More trouble is brewing for the prime minister over the pledge he made during the Scottish independence referendum to maintain the Barnett formula, which provides favourable public-spending increases per head in Scotland compared with England. Up to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/11232346/David-Cameron-facing-rebellion-from-70-Tory-MPs-over-Barnett-formula-vote.html">70 Conservative MPs</a> are reportedly threatening to support a House of Commons motion calling for a review of the Barnett formula. They claim it funds some welfare services that are free in Scotland but must be paid for in England.</p>
<h2>A simple guide to losing your leader</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/%7Etquinn/leadership_election_rules.htm#CONSERVATIVE_PARTY">process of removing a Tory leader</a> begins with Conservative MPs writing letters to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee requesting a confidence vote in the incumbent. </p>
<p>Those who write such letters are promised anonymity. If letters are received from 15% of Tory parliamentarians – which would be 46 MPs as things currently stand – then a confidence vote is automatically triggered. The vote would be a secret ballot of all 303 Conservative MPs. Cameron would need to win a majority of those voting to remain in post.</p>
<p>It’s a system that weakens the security of a leader’s tenure in many ways. Anonymity in both the letter-writing and voting stages offers cover to disgruntled MPs who might otherwise fear reprisals for their act of mutiny. Even cabinet ministers could make public statements of support for the prime minister but vote against him with impunity in a confidence vote.</p>
<p>The system also means that there is no need for a challenger to come forward to take on the incumbent leader. The first stage of the process is purely a confidence vote so no one needs to stick their head above the parapet.</p>
<p>If the leader lost the vote, a leadership election would follow and they would not be allowed to participate. So cabinet ministers with their eyes on the top job would not need to risk their careers by challenging Cameron directly – they could simply leave it to disgruntled backbenchers, or even to give a nod to their allies to begin a letter-writing campaign in pursuit of a confidence vote.</p>
<p>There have long been rumours that some letters have already been sent to the chairman of the 1922 Committee about Cameron. Worse still, these letters can remain on file for years until such time as the requisite number has been received.</p>
<p>If there were a confidence vote, Cameron would need to win a convincing majority to hold on to his post. While the rules stipulate that he would need to win a bare majority, a slim margin of victory could, in reality, severely undermine his authority and leave his position untenable.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, on the opposition benches, Miliband is relatively secure, regardless of what the press says. Labour does not hold confidence votes and the <a href="http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/%7Etquinn/leadership_election_rules.htm#LABOUR_PARTY">party’s rules</a> require a challenger to come forward with support from 20% of Labour MPs before a leadership contest can be triggered.</p>
<h2>Expect the unexpected</h2>
<p>The current Conservative rules were used in 2003 to remove Iain Duncan Smith as Conservative leader. The party also <a href="http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/%7Etquinn/conservative_party_leadership_elections.htm">deposed Margaret Thatcher</a> as Conservative leader and prime minister under different rules in November 1990.</p>
<p>It is true that Thatcher and her party were unpopular at the time but curiously, the six months before her removal had seen an improvement in both her own net satisfaction ratings and in her party’s support in the polls. The existence of these leader-eviction rules, and the fact that they could so easily be set in motion played a major role in Thatcher’s demise. Her opponents were able, without too much difficulty, to put her internal popularity to the test.</p>
<p>And indeed, some have said that she was deposed almost by accident. Some MPs may have voted against her thinking it would send a message to the leader without seriously endangering her position. Others who would not ordinarily have pushed for a change of leadership may have decided to vote for a change once presented with a ballot paper. </p>
<p>Cameron is unlikely to be the victim of an accidental defenestration like Thatcher but all it takes is a resentful reaction by backbenchers to bad news to set the process in motion. An event that seems unlikely one minute can quickly build momentum. Before Cameron knows what’s happened, he could have joined the ranks of past Tory leaders who were dispatched by their own colleagues.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated following the result of the Rochester and Strood by-election.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much speculation has surrounded Ed Miliband’s position as Labour leader since word of a campaign against him has spread. But less attention has been focused on David Cameron’s position as Conservative…Tom Quinn, Senior Lecturer, Department of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343142014-11-17T11:40:54Z2014-11-17T11:40:54ZRight tactic, wrong target: Tories can’t beat Reckless with carpet bagging claims<p>You don’t want to vote for him. He grew up in London and went to Oxford, to study politics (of all things). He’s worked as a banker and as a political researcher. And he only moved here to become an MP, the swine.</p>
<p>This is the message being delivered to voters in Rochester and Strood on a leaflet being pushed through their doors ahead of the by-election taking place in the constituency on November 21. The leaflet is from the Conservative Party and it takes aim at Mark Reckless, the MP who defected to UKIP earlier this year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/64709/original/fnv6h86c-1416223141.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reckless tactics?</span>
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</figure>
<p>It’s easy to mock the leaflet and <a href="http://politicalscrapbook.net/2014/11/tories-attack-ukip-candidate-mark-reckless-for-attending-oxford-rochester-and-strood/">plenty have</a>. Reckless has held the seat for the Conservatives since 2010 and the party seemed to have been content to put him forward as their candidate again in 2015 had he not switched sides. </p>
<p>Voters may well feel confused about why Reckless is so terrible now if he was just fine and dandy as a Tory candidate. They may also be wondering why the Conservatives are criticising him for characteristics that would appear to apply to <a href="https://twitter.com/stephenkb/status/533337209282519040">a rather large proportion</a> of the Conservative parliamentary party. Went to Oxford, to study politics? Who can they mean?</p>
<p>But just because something’s cynical doesn’t mean it won’t work. There’s plenty of research showing just how good that leaflet might be at pressing voters’ buttons.</p>
<p>For example, the leaflet talks about Kelly Tolhurst, the Conservative candidate, having gone to the local high school but doesn’t mention any university education. Mark Reckless, we learn, went to school in Wiltshire and then on to study at Oxford. As hard as it is for those who work in education to take sometimes, voters actually prefer non-university educated candidates.</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.12048/abstract">One experiment</a> found voters preferred candidates who’d left school at 18 to those who left at 16, although even those who left school at 16 are preferred to graduates. The experiment didn’t specifically look at Oxford, but I think we can guess what that’s meant to imply. It also found that studying politics and having a background in politics – just like Reckless – made voters think of candidates as more experienced but didn’t make them more likely to want that person as their MP.</p>
<p>Another <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-856X.12002/abstract">experiment</a> also compared occupational backgrounds. This probably won’t come as a shock, but people running local businesses are noticeably more popular than those involved in finance. The same study, incidentally, found that otherwise identical men and women are seen as equally electable by voters, it’s just that the men are seen as more experienced, while the women are more approachable.</p>
<h2>Keeping it close to home</h2>
<p>The key facet of the Tory message in its Rochester leaflet is local, local, local. All six of the bullet points describing Kelly Tolhurst focus on her local links. She was born and raised in the constituency, she went to the local school and runs a business in the area. She’s been a councillor where she could be found “fighting to make our schools better” (note “our schools”, not “your schools”) and she’s even got a six-point plan to improve her community. Reckless, by contrast, is presented as a carpet-bagger, or what the French call a parachutiste.</p>
<p>From the outside, it’s tempting to be a bit sniffy about this sort of local appeal. It all seems a bit privet-hedge, a bit insular, a bit parochial. But there’s plenty of evidence to show it matters to voters, and more than many of the other things that commentators often bang on about.</p>
<p>Being local was, for example, the top of a list of demographic characteristics <a href="http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/journal/v8/n2/abs/bp201228a.html">that voters say</a> they want from their MP. For <a href="http://revolts.co.uk/?p=750">many voters</a>, it is as important, or even more important than, having someone who shares their political views.</p>
<p>The experiments described above found that living outside the constituency (even if prepared to move if selected) was enough to generate a 15% swing against a candidate. And some work done by Jocelyn Evans, reported in a <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Lies-Ballot-Box-elections/dp/1849547556/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416134489&sr=1-1">new book on British elections</a>, found there was a significant difference when you looked at the locations of candidates in both local and general elections and their electoral success.</p>
<p>Looked at this way, that Conservative leaflet is perhaps more astute than it first appears. It’s almost as if someone at Conservative HQ has been reading the academic literature on this.</p>
<p>While the leaflet may be well pitched, it alone can’t propel Tolhurst to victory on November 21. No leaflet makes or breaks an election and in this particular case we have the added complication that Mark Reckless, as an incumbent MP, may already have a negated many of his supposed disadvantages. Even before his victory in the seat in 2010, he’d stood in its predecessor seat in 2001 and 2005. He may be a parachutiste, but he’s a parachutiste who landed safely some time ago and has now firmly dug in.</p>
<p>What’s more, some voters may well have the same mocking reaction as many other did on seeing that leaflet. The polls, the bookies, and most observers have Mark Reckless on course to hold his seat on Thursday for his new party. But even if the Conservatives lose, that leaflet is still smarter politics than it might seem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Philip Cowley currently receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust for work on MPs and parliament. </span></em></p>You don’t want to vote for him. He grew up in London and went to Oxford, to study politics (of all things). He’s worked as a banker and as a political researcher. And he only moved here to become an MP…Philip Cowley, Professor, School of Politics and International Relations, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/326612014-10-13T02:03:29Z2014-10-13T02:03:29ZPolitics as usual? Ailing parties fail to get to grips with social media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61491/original/wqt3mfdw-1413159140.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Senator John Faulkner's call for political parties to re-engage with Australians through social media is laudable, but his own efforts illustrate how much politicians have to learn.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook/John Faulkner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After his <a href="http://australianpolitics.com/2014/10/07/john-faulkner-alp-reform-speech.html">speech about party renewal</a> last week, I went to Labor Senator <a href="https://www.facebook.com/senatorjohnfaulkner?ref=br_rs">John Faulkner’s Facebook page</a>. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner has been to, including meeting US President Barack Obama and a charity event for Alzheimer’s. But in reality it’s being used as just another medium to “broadcast” political messages and statements.</p>
<p>There is no evidence that John Faulkner himself uses the page - it says it’s managed by his office. There is no interaction at all with the people who have taken time to comment on the page. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the way social media works.</p>
<p>Social media provides an everyday horizontal network between a group of connected individuals; it’s meant to be an informal space to interact and engage. Increasingly, ordinary citizens want to see that politicians are ordinary like them, just community members who happen to be politicians. They want politicians to be authentic and are sceptical if they see staff posting on their behalf.</p>
<h2>Social media is a primary source of source</h2>
<p>I recently completed a project, <a href="http://www.york.ac.uk/satsu/civic-network/">The Civic Network</a>, in collaboration with USA and UK-based colleagues, Michael Xenos and Brian Loader. Our project examined how young people use social media for political engagement. We were especially interested in whether social media was making it easier for a broader range of young people to express themselves and take action on politics.</p>
<p>Facebook has become ubiquitous for young people. About 90% of those aged 16-29 in each country have a Facebook page. Young people also learn about politics and major news events on Facebook rather than via traditional news outlets. That is, 65% of young Australians hear about major news events first on Facebook, before any other media outlet, and a majority regularly follow links to news stories from Facebook. </p>
<p>Our research suggests that we need to take Facebook much more seriously as a space where young people - purposefully or incidentally - engage with politics, with their networks of friends and family. Furthermore, contrary to popular speculation, this does not lead to an echo chamber of hearing only one-sided views. A majority of young Australians say they learn from Facebook friends who have different political views from theirs.</p>
<p>Many of our research participants believe that “liking” is an important way of showing symbolic support for political issues they and their friends care about. They are more likely to do this than to comment on posts about politics, which was just over a third in Australia and UK and 40% in the US.</p>
<h2>Old politics is for old media</h2>
<p>In qualitative online discussions we asked young people what they thought about posting on politics on social media and to explain the reluctance to make comments. One of the main reasons they are reluctant to comment on politics is that it could lead to conflict: they are wary of disagreement, arguments and offending someone. </p>
<p>This means that young people in general equate politics with conflict that is best avoided. Some said they thought that political conversations were better done face-to-face. Those who weren’t actively engaged in politics really wanted social media to be kept as just a social space for family and friends.</p>
<p>However, some of our young participants were optimistic about engagement with politics through social media platforms. One young woman stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I do think it is good. Many people my age have switched off the traditional media and it is rare to meet somebody who regularly watches the news or reads a newspaper. It is therefore important to spark their engagement in other ways. If they are actively reading, engaging and being informed by conversations on social media sites, then it creates a more informed public.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also asked them whether they thought politicians should use social media more. Most thought it was a good idea as politicians should be available to be asked questions publicly and needed to be responsive to people, demonstrating that they listened to their views. They thought it was a way that politicians could focus on sharing information and policy, especially for young people who weren’t watching the news.</p>
<p>For example, one person said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think it’s a good thing our society is moving online and politicians are usually older people and it’s good to seem making an effort to stay up to date with technology and younger people who popularly use social media.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some suggested that more interaction should become a normalised practice for politicians:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think politicians using Facebook or Twitter is a good thing, as it allows them to interact with a younger audience on a more regular basis. However, I think that politicians need to use these social networks better, for example, perhaps doing weekly question and answer posts submitted from users.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61493/original/rgb3tgq5-1413159512.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While some scoffed, Kevin Rudd’s ‘shaving cut’ selfie suited social media’s more personal political culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook/Kevin Rudd</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many also thought it could help show politicians were normal people, especially if their messages were positive and genuine. In a discussion about Kevin Rudd’s use of a <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/kevin-rudd-cuts-himself-shaving-then-shares-it-on-twitter/story-fnho52ip-1226676991326">selfie after cutting himself</a> shaving during the 2013 election campaign, one young man said: “I think it’s funny, and it shows that Kevin Rudd has a humorous side to him and can be taken as not just a politician who’s always serious.”</p>
<p>But some were concerned that politicians wouldn’t be authentic and that their staff would write the messages, not them. Part of authentic engagement was about being positive, not mired in adversarial and partisan conflict. For example, one woman said that politicians needed to “post relevant pieces of information that are interesting to people, without tearing to shreds the opposition”.</p>
<p>In the end, this is the difficult challenge for politics and politicians. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/10/john-faulkners-call-for-trust-drowned-out-by-all-the-stunts">Politics is about contestations</a> over power, resources and decision-making. Debate and conflict are core. Young people’s everyday social media use is often about positive affirmation, liking posts and engaging on issues that matter to them. </p>
<p>The reconciliation of these two spaces is increasingly important if we want to reverse democratic disengagement. It will require a new form of interaction that cannot be politics as usual.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ariadne Vromen received funding from The Spencer Foundation (USA) for the project The Civic Network, undertaken with Michael Xenos and Brian Loader.</span></em></p>After his speech about party renewal last week, I went to Labor Senator John Faulkner’s Facebook page. It has about 2700 likes. The page features links to speeches and pictures of events that Faulkner…Ariadne Vromen, Associate Professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/324182014-10-07T05:14:45Z2014-10-07T05:14:45ZCould state funding help fix Britain’s flailing political parties?<p>The latest batch of <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN05125/membership-of-uk-political-parties">data</a> on political party membership in Great Britain do not make happy reading for the faithful. Membership of the major parties is at a historic low, with less than 1% of the electorate a member of the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats or Labour; and even with surges in membership for the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29505094">Greens</a> and the <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/snp-membership-soars-politics-scotland-referendum">Scottish National Party</a>, trust in politics in the UK as a whole is at a grim low.</p>
<p>This is in line with a broader, <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/05/06/decline-in-party-membership-europe-ingrid-van-biezen/">Europe-wide decline in party membership</a>, and throws up the uncomfortable question of how political parties are supposed to fund their own existence. The simple fact is that they can no longer expect to be financially self-sustaining – if, indeed, they ever really were.</p>
<p>The funds they will need to survive might be private, public, or a mixture of the two, but the money will have to come from somewhere. And more and more, political reformers are looking to another Europe-wide trend as an example: an increasing reliance on states to foot the bill. </p>
<h2>Cleaning up</h2>
<p>Almost all changes to the ways European parties are funded have gone in this direction: away from private funding and towards an increase in state funding (Italy is a rare <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25370808">exception</a>). </p>
<p>Theories as to why this might be are legion; one interesting explanation (clearly overlooking Italy) is that using state rather than private funding has become a remedy for ingrained party corruption – that private funding is seen as a necessarily more corrupt way for parties to fund their existence.</p>
<p>Such arguments are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/22/influence-mps-regulated-lobbying-paid-consultancies">made in the UK with some regularity</a>, and are often used to argue for reform. But there is no basis for the assumption that state funding is a necessarily less corrupt way of doing things (after all, the money parties are granted is still theirs to spend) – and in any case, public opinion tends to be firmly against it.</p>
<p>State funding might turn out to be a less corrupt way of financing British politics, but we just don’t know that for sure; like any system, it will raise its own problems of transparency and oversight. But seeing the problem as a matter of “state good, private bad” is unhelpful at best. What is more important is figuring out what kind of corruption challenge state funding represents, and how it differs from the challenges of private funding.</p>
<p>After all, expecting anything in politics to be entirely and permanently “corruption-free” – let alone party finance – is wishful thinking of the highest order. </p>
<h2>Bad faith</h2>
<p>But we have to distinguish between the idea that party finance is inevitably corrupt because politicians are all lying, cheating, snout-in-the-trough, self-serving scumbags – what <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-flinders-95763">Matthew Flinders</a> calls the “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/.VCvTP010yUk">bad faith model of politics</a>” – and a competing, more realistic, worldview: that party finance of any type carries some inevitable danger of corruption, and that politicians in general do not seek office to abuse power for their own ends. </p>
<p>Accepting the premise that party finance is inevitably corrupt does not necessarily entail holding a negative view of politicians and the political elite. It simply means facing the reality: certain corruption problems are inevitable, and accepting that will allow us to pre-empt and deal with them whenever possible.</p>
<p>A report from the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/the-committee-on-standards-in-public-life">Committee on Standards in Public Life</a> has proposed a shake-up of the way in which political parties were funded. The <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/party-funding-what-is-the-solution">key recommendation</a> was a cap on donations, which would effectively bring in increased state subsidisation. </p>
<p>As the report put it, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the public want to take big money out of politics, the only way to do so is a cap on donations. It is unrealistic to expect to be able to do that at a level low enough to achieve the objective without at the same time increasing public support.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But public perceptions and expectations are often divorced from reality. That much has been demonstrated by <a href="http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/19/1.toc">research</a> showing that while the public has little knowledge of the British party funding system, its ignorance is no barrier to hostility towards the system.</p>
<p>This means that increased state subsidies for party funding will most likely be seen as nothing less than an outrageous waste of public money – and that as far as public opinion goes, full state funding is almost inconceivable.</p>
<h2>Long odds</h2>
<p>For this reason, public opinion should not serve as a gatekeeper on party finance reform. The only financing model currently acceptable to public opinion as things stand would be one entirely funded by membership subscriptions – a system that has never really existed in Britain, and which would be totally unworkable with today’s politics at their current low ebb.</p>
<p>This is all testament to the damage that the bad faith model of politics can have on the effective working of the political process (although politicians have, of course, done <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/10761548/MPs-expenses-A-scandal-that-will-not-die.html">plenty to feed it</a>). When attitudes to politics in general are this caustic, everything about it can seem corrupt, further muddying the real issues and making meaningful change to the system next to impossible.</p>
<p>To get past this hurdle, the debate about the introduction of state funding should move away from the whole idea of more corrupt/less corrupt and instead revolve around about what system would actually work the best. The idea that the British electorate’s respect for politics will be magically revived the moment a bill capping donations gets passed is pie in the sky. </p>
<p>Above all, the acceptance that corruption is to some extent “inevitable” should not be read as a personal condemnation of our politicians or an indictment of our entire establishment. Any system of party finance in any country presents its own unique corruption challenges. </p>
<p>By dismissing politicians themselves as inevitably corrupt, we not only do the well-behaved ones a disservice; more seriously, we undercut the case for significant, effective reform, whether for anti-corruption purposes or just to keep our party system alive.</p>
<p>At their last party conference before the 2015 general election, the Liberal Democrats are proposing a £10,000 cap on donations to political parties, in line with recommendations <a href="http://www.transparency.org.uk/news-room/blog/12-blog/158-the-need-for-reform-to-party-funding-is-palpable">Transparency International</a> and others have been making for years. These proposals should serve to throw these debates into sharper focus, rather than rely on simplistic notions stripped of all nuance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Power receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council.</span></em></p>The latest batch of data on political party membership in Great Britain do not make happy reading for the faithful. Membership of the major parties is at a historic low, with less than 1% of the electorate…Sam Power, Doctoral researcher, Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/275432014-06-04T15:07:12Z2014-06-04T15:07:12ZNewark by-election reminds us how crucial local campaigns are<p>With the political fallout from the local and European elections fresh in the memory, the electoral circus has moved on to Newark. At stake is the seat vacated by MP Patrick Mercer, who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27208966">resigned over a lobbying scandal</a> in April 2014. </p>
<p>The by-election’s outcome could have major political consequences for all the main parties. Will Ukip register their first parliamentary seat following its success at the recent local and European elections? Can the Conservatives win a by-election while in government for the first time since 1989 and halt the Ukip advance? Can Labour poll strongly to dispel the rumblings over Ed Miliband’s leadership? And could a lost deposit in Newark spell more Liberal Democrat in-fighting and add to the pressure on Nick Clegg to stand down? </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Newark has been a hub of pre-poll activity, with David Cameron visiting the constituency four times and party beasts from across the political spectrum descending on the Nottinghamshire constituency in droves as the scramble for votes intensifies. </p>
<p>By-elections are indeed special electoral occasions, but in such close contests, they reassert the importance of one much overlooked but significant aspect of British elections: the local constituency campaign.</p>
<h2>All politics are local</h2>
<p>Local parties play a pivotal role in the electoral process, actively identifying potential supporters and then ensuring on election day that they turn out to vote to maximise their chances of winning. Yet up until the mid-1980s, the local constituency campaign’s impact on electoral outcomes was largely dismissed as negligible. </p>
<p>They were dismissed even by the most esteemed British psephologist of them all, David Butler, who famously <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3333364">wrote</a> that “If all constituency electioneering were abandoned, the national outcome would probably be little altered.”</p>
<p>But over the past 30 years, numerous <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026137941100134X">academic studies</a> have dispelled that observation – consistently finding that when a party campaigns more intensively than its opponents in a particular constituency, it receives a clear electoral payoff.</p>
<p>The nature of campaigning has also changed. The days when an MP drove around his/her constituency on polling day with a loudspeaker beckoning supporters to trudge to the polling stations to vote are largely (though not totally) gone. Generally speaking, all the main parties have become more sophisticated in their approach, focusing resources in key marginal seats where they believe the election will be won or lost. </p>
<p>To some extent, this depends on the electoral context; in 2010, for instance, Labour ran an <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379411001016">extremely successful</a> defensive campaign strategy in its safer seats, which undoubtedly limited the party’s losses.</p>
<h2>They know where you live</h2>
<p>Parties just don’t target areas within constituencies; they also use <a href="http://www.libdemvoice.org/interviewing-mark-sullivan-the-founder-of-the-firms-new-electoral-database-supplier-25427.html">geo-demographic software</a> to compile household and individual data, which they then combine with canvass records to tailor individual messages to targeted groups. </p>
<p>Increasingly, local campaigns have been bolstered by support from the national parties, with target voters canvassed from centralised call centres and then sent personalised literature. Whereas in the past local campaigns were essentially independent of the central campaign, many are now coordinated from the parties’ national and regional headquarters. Party campaigns in key target seats are therefore more and more joint efforts, with the local constituency parties still responsible for providing volunteers and the money needed to run their campaign activities such as printing posters and leaflets. </p>
<p>Local leaflets and direct mail (from outside the constituency) still remain a staple of party electioneering. And telephone canvassing has increased substantially over the past twenty years. Both have <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-856X.12011/abstract">proven track records</a> of mobilising voters – but research has also repeatedly shown that personal contact through doorstep canvassing are by some distance the most effective means of socialising and mobilising voters. </p>
<p>But the parties face a dilemma here. The steady <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN05125/membership-of-uk-political-parties">decline in membership across all parties</a> has meant their resources are continuously stretched, and campaigns are increasingly struggling to keep up the extensive personal contact which was at the core of local electioneering 20 or 30 years ago. The parties have adapted their tactics in response; the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-856X.12011/abstract">increasing use of non-party members as campaign volunteers</a> is now evident across all parties while parties are encouraging core supporters to use the postal vote system, easing the pressure on constituency polling day operations, and allowing them to concentrate their mobilisation efforts on those voters who are more undecided.</p>
<p>And what about Newark? Rob Ford and Matthew Goodwin, the emerging authorities on Ukip’s recent advance, have poured cold water on hopes of a Ukip victory there, ranking it as the <a href="https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/473481136703025152">248th most Ukip-friendly seat</a> in the country. This seems to be borne out by recent Ashcroft polling in the constituency, which <a href="http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/8852">suggests a comfortable Conservative victory</a>. </p>
<p>But by-elections are unpredictable. With <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/nov/16/uk-election-turnouts-historic">generally lower turnout</a> than at general elections, it is even more vital for parties to locate, secure and mobilise their core supporters. Because if the contest is at all close, a well-organised local campaign might well make the difference between winning and losing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cutts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With the political fallout from the local and European elections fresh in the memory, the electoral circus has moved on to Newark. At stake is the seat vacated by MP Patrick Mercer, who resigned over a…David Cutts, Reader in Political Science, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223662014-01-24T07:04:54Z2014-01-24T07:04:54ZFive reasons to be miserable for the Liberal Democrats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39778/original/3hqy2vk7-1390494849.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nick Clegg has more Facebook "likes" than David Cameron.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Cheskin/PA Wire</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Liberal Democrats are in trouble. The party appears to be engaged in a very public form of hari-kiri, accelerating its own political meltdown. The heady days of 23% polling and Cleggmania in 2010 seem a long, long time ago as the party flatlines at around the 7.7% mark in the polls. </p>
<p>It had seemed that the Liberal Democrats recent approach of differentiation from its dominant Conservative coalition partner on some policies, while sticking to the broad government austerity programme – reconciling the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2013.12013.x/pdf">“unity/distinctiveness” dilemma</a> – would reap some reward with voters. </p>
<p>The hope was that that as the parties “de-couple” ahead of the 2015 general election, centre-left voters would return to the Liberal Democrat fold while the party would gain credit as a supportive coalition partner as the economy shows signs of recovery. This strategy has been blown apart by the Rennard affair and its subsequent fallout.</p>
<p>Five obvious reasons come to mind as to why this affair is so damaging for the Liberal Democrats.</p>
<h2>1. The story will not go away</h2>
<p>Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former director of communications, has been attributed with the “<a href="http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2010/09/08/my-golden-rule-on-frenzy-survival-lost-in-mists-of-time/">golden rule</a>” for managing a media frenzy – if the story grows legs and runs, and is still in the headlines days later, the original subject is toast. The Rennard story broke on January 15 with the conclusion of the internal party review into Lord Rennard’s behaviour. The inquiry by Alistair Webster QC found there was no proof Lord Rennard behaved in a sexually inappropriate way, but concluded the evidence of the women who made the allegations was “broadly credible” and the peer may have violated their personal space. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39779/original/sqhb2jwg-1390495788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lord Rennard: veteran political operator.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cathal McNaughton/PA</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In an attempt to adhere to Campbell’s “golden rule” (and after Rennard defied calls for an apology), a committee of Liberal Democrats suspended him pending an investigation into whether his lack of contrition had brought the party into disrepute. The story rumbles on, despite calls for the party to “move on”, as Lord Rennard has threatened legal action against his suspension. Interventions by Paddy Ashdown on behalf of Nick Clegg also failed to draw a line under it. A week on and Rennard is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/20/liberal-democrats-fault-lines-lord-rennard">still in the news</a>, exposing considerable internal divisions in the party.</p>
<h2>2. The party has a serious image problem</h2>
<p>The story has become a lightning rod for a range of political commentary on <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-harassment-claims-not-a-new-problem-for-the-lib-dems-22270">sexual harassment in the Lib Dems</a> and the treatment of women in politics more generally. As <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/37075">Elizabeth Evans has pointed out</a>, the Liberal Democrat party has a problem. The party has the lowest percentage of women in parliament and the lowest number of MPs. With Sarah Teather having stood down and Annette Brook not contesting her seat in 2015, only five incumbent women MPs will remain. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=798&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/39781/original/pbsmymn6-1390495901.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1003&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mike Hancock: image problem.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Ison/PA Wire</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The prospects in each constituency are not good. To compound matters, maverick MP Mike Hancock has been suspended for making sexual advances to a constituent. This all creates an image of a dysfunctional, male dominated party. It damages the “liberal” brand of the party and undermines its attempts to appeal on the basis of its core values of transparency, openness and importantly equality.</p>
<h2>3. Clegg, Clegg, Clegg</h2>
<p>Just when Nick Clegg was contemplating a change of fortune, hoping to benefit from some good economic news on one hand and a sharper differentiation strategy on issues such as welfare reform and immigration, this hits his leadership. His careful attempts to position the party as a brake on the more right-wing instincts of the Conservatives have been blown off course by having to deal with serious allegations about Liberal Democrat conduct and defend arcane aspects of party rules and culture. </p>
<p>This could have been avoided. The Rennard issue has been around since 2007 and not properly dealt with. Whilst Clegg has complained that he leads a “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/10586902/Nick-Clegg-will-call-Lord-Rennards-bluff-over-legal-action.html">party not a sect</a>”, his leadership has been questioned as he has struggled to deal effectively with an internal crisis that has spilled out into an external one.</p>
<h2>4. Support may not have bottomed</h2>
<p>The party has been flatlining in support at around 7.7% in the polls. Since the heady days of 23% of the vote share at the May 2010 election (and a YouGov poll during the televised debates that put the party at 34%), support fell to <a href="http://nottspolitics.org/2013/09/20/polling-observatory-conference-season-update-1-liberal-democrats/">14% in polls by September 2010</a> and never recovered, polling below 10% for the past three years. </p>
<p>This is dangerous electoral territory. The party has been haemorrhaging members and losing council seats. It is likely to be pushed into a distant fourth place (or lower) at the European Parliament elections in May. The mid-term by-election win in Eastleigh demonstrated more that the Lib Dems do well when they have concentrated resources. Those resources nationwide are now seriously depleted. With fewer members and councillors and many fewer supporters than in 2010, the party has a serious capacity problem.</p>
<h2>5. Rennard would be a big loss</h2>
<p>Which brings us back to Lord Rennard. The Liberal Democrat party is small, with only 57 MPs and 99 peers; it has to spread its parliamentary and policy resources thinly. In elections it concentrates resources to overcome the disproportionality in the electoral system. Even though in 2010 it entered government for the first time since the brief national government of 1945, the party actually lost five seats and increased vote share by only 1%. Rennard, as chief executive of the party until 2009, was the architect of by-election victories and an electoral strategy that made the most of meagre resources. </p>
<p>He is credited with developing the Lib Dem style of localised “pavement politics”. Although no longer chief strategist, he was expected to have a major role in the developing the 2015 party manifesto and maintain an influence on electoral tactics and campaigning. His loss will be a major blow.</p>
<p>The outlook is not good for the party, battered and bruised by a period in coalition that may have done more harm than good to long-term electoral fortunes. All is not lost though, as <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/36662">comparative research</a>by Akash Paun and Robyn Munro shows, smaller parties are less likely to be punished in a coalition if it lasts the distance and, while they may have little control over whether they stay in government or not, the post election arithmetic may mean that Nick Clegg is still the kingmaker in a hung parliament, even if the party is decimated at the next election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Bennister does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Liberal Democrats are in trouble. The party appears to be engaged in a very public form of hari-kiri, accelerating its own political meltdown. The heady days of 23% polling and Cleggmania in 2010 seem…Mark Bennister, Senior Lecturer, Canterbury Christ Church UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/203232013-11-15T13:42:48Z2013-11-15T13:42:48ZTories forget how the internet works, deletegate reminds them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/35399/original/9z2bvmrj-1384516792.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Let me be clear. Because you'll not be able to Google this later.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department for Culture Media and Sport</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 1996 election campaign that brought Bill Clinton to the White House fundamentally changed the way campaigns are run in more ways than one. Clinton’s success owed much to the genius of <a href="http://carville.info/">James Carville</a>, the lead strategist behind his successful election campaign and creator of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108515/">“the war room”</a> This was a political command centre where strategists and their media officers worked together to counter-attack opponents with unprecedented speed.</p>
<p>Their lightning-fast responses were made possible thanks to a database that collected all the available information about opponents so that it could be used against them. Old speeches were trawled for past proclamations and long-forgotten incidents raked up to cause fresh embarrassment. All this information could be sent out to journalists at the drop of a hat, as soon as the opportune moment presented itself.</p>
<p>Carville’s <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buck-Suck-Come-Back-When/dp/B00EEWUDDY/ref=sr_1_4/276-2112824-4499813?ie=UTF8&qid=1384433544&sr=8-4&keywords=war+room+carville">war room</a> revolutionised the way election campaigns are conducted in a model exported to Canada, the UK and beyond. Much of its success was its adaptability for running a campaign in the 24-hour news age. Campaigns could respond almost instantly to just about anything with little advance notice when the war room’s database was well organised.</p>
<p>The Conservative Party recently hired <a href="https://twitter.com/LyntonKCrosby">Lynton Crosby</a>, an Australian strategist who assisted London mayor Boris Johnson’s re-election campaign. He has been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24795026">credited with “sharpening up” the party’s nascent campaign</a> ahead of the expected 2015 general election and already has his war room up and running. But his war room reveals something new about their uses and limits.</p>
<p>It is sometimes said the best offence is a good defence. In an election campaign, the less troublesome information there is in the hands of your opponents’ war machines, the less they will be able to launch attacks on you. If the Tories could restrict the available information about themselves to opponents, then they could enjoy a strategic advantage when it comes to disseminating rapid press releases countering claims on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what the Conservatives did. Or at least thought they did. Despite earlier promises that government should be made more transparent so politicians could be held to account, <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2013/11/conservatives-erase-internet-h.html">the Tories have tried – literally – to erase their recent online history.</a> In an act of brazen Machiavellian chutzpah mixed with untold naivety, the party has tried to erase records of speeches and press releases published between 2000 and its coming to power in May 2010. </p>
<p>This was not just about removing content from the Conservative Party website, but also about removing all such records from the internet. The Tories launched a <a href="http://danielwebb.us/software/bot-trap/">bot blocker</a> that barred pages for public consumption – one aim appears to be to make it nearly impossible to conduct online searches for embarrassing pre-coalition speeches. Or at least that’s what they thought they did.</p>
<p>However, there was a significant flaw in the plan. The personnel in Crosby’s war room clearly don’t understand the internet. Removing online content post-publication can be easier said than done, especially where the content is by a party in government.</p>
<p>“Deletegate” has been made all the more ridiculous by the relative ease with which the missing content has been retrieved. It’s readily clear why Crosby’s war room thought it would be a good idea to try to brush some past pronouncements under the carpet once you see what was removed.</p>
<p>For example, among the pre-2010 proclamations made by PM David Cameron that were removed from the Conservative Party website were <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/6-speeches-the-conservatives-dont-want-you-to-see">promises</a> to offer no major structural change to the NHS, a commitment to increasing state spending, a pledge to permit voters to remove individual MPs halfway through a parliament and support for the transparency in politics that the internet brings and we should welcome.</p>
<p>The error of Deletegate is in thinking the internet is like paper and not fluid. Newspapers or books can be seized and burned. They can, with enough effort, be permanently deleted. The internet is more like a stream that can be managed and shaped, but where deletion might be impossible to achieve.</p>
<p>Labour has now been exposed <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24942040">“managing” the content of its website</a> to delete old content but it doesn’t appear to have brazenly attempted to wipe the internet clean of the content, perhaps realising that this would be a near impossible task.</p>
<p>The war room is a modern approach to running an election campaign designed for our media age. The aim of winning elections may remain the same, but the means by which elections are contested has been fundamentally transformed. Thanks to Crosby, so too has the adage of the best offence is a good defence. Deletegate indicates that the information war may be best won through information management rather than delete bots. Sometimes what appears to be a good defence is a better offence for opponents. I’m sure Carville would agree.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20323/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thom Brooks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The 1996 election campaign that brought Bill Clinton to the White House fundamentally changed the way campaigns are run in more ways than one. Clinton’s success owed much to the genius of James Carville…Thom Brooks, Reader in Law at Durham Law School , Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/80292012-07-03T20:38:59Z2012-07-03T20:38:59ZPolitics: it is everything you do and more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/12486/original/5nf2f6zv-1341199488.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Politics is more than just the daily tussle of the news cycle and soundbites.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term political junkie gets bandied about a great deal, but this addict has no problem in admitting his habit.</p>
<p>It’s been a pure joy to be able to read, think and write about politics and government since moving to the University of Sydney in 2006. </p>
<p>I’ve been able to reconnect with my favourite authors such as John Stuart Mill and, in the process, come into contact with new ways of describing and analysing the never-ending pursuit of power and influence. </p>
<p>At the same time having public servants and political advisers as students - from both here and overseas - has helped me keep my feet on the ground.</p>
<p>It has also provided fertile intellectual ground in which to develop the ideas in my new book, <a href="http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/books-and-authors/book/politics-society-self/">Politics, Society, Self: Occasional Writings</a>.</p>
<h2>Political tension</h2>
<p>In many ways my primary interest has been the nature of the relationship between politics and principle – and the tensions therein. </p>
<p>It’s an issue that is important whether we are reflecting on the means to or ends of power. I’ve known how hard it is to achieve change and how easy it is to compromise, but we know also that politics needs a purpose or “light on the hill” as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Chifley">Ben Chifley</a> called it.</p>
<p>Managing this tension requires judgement and involves character and emotion as well as beliefs and intellect. As Peter Drucker observed in his essay <a href="http://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-oneself/ar/1">“Managing Oneself”</a>; it’s about ethics - “What kind of a person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?” - and values </p>
<p>As Drucker writes: “Organisations, like people, have values. To be effective in an organisation, a person’s values must be compatible with the organisation’s values.”</p>
<h2>Agnosticism, politics and fundamentalism</h2>
<p>It begins, however, with the outlook we take into the world of politics and government. Here, I’m indebted to the work of English Buddhist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Batchelor_(author)">Stephen Batchelor</a>, whose defence of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Henry_Huxley">T.H.Huxley’s</a> agnosticism in Buddhism without Beliefs I found most appealing. </p>
<p>It is, he says, a “method” rather than a “creed”. To make his point Batchelor quotes Huxley: “Follow your reason as far as it will take you” and “Do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”</p>
<p>It’s not a call to ditch ideas and worship science, but rather a call to realism and a challenge to keep our minds open and active. </p>
<p>Our scientific inquiries have enabled us to learn more about existence, life and history, including the role that morality and compassion play in human affairs. However, human knowledge informs and helps but it doesn’t and can’t complete the picture in the way radical theists or atheists would wish.</p>
<h2>The crucial role of politics</h2>
<p>That there are many ideologists and religionists who believe the picture can be completed – in theory and in fact – poses a particular challenge for politics. In fact such fundamentalism is the enemy of politics – as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Crick">Bernard Crick</a> argued so convincingly in his 1962 classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Defence-Politics-Continuum-Impacts/dp/0826487513">In Defence of Politics</a>.</p>
<p>Difference in society is inevitable, and politics is a way of managing it with minimum force and violence. It means accepting opposing points of view, being willing to negotiate and compromise and looking for creative ways to solve intractable problems. </p>
<p>Understanding this fundamentalist tendency – and its sources in the contemporary world – is important and reminds us of the importance of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment">Enlightenment</a> concepts like “human rights”, “the separation of Church and State” and “checks and balances”.</p>
<h2>Values - everybody has them</h2>
<p>However, Crick didn’t see politics as requiring complete neutrality in the face of difference. That’s impossible and self-defeating in a value-laden world. Thinking and acting politically doesn’t preclude commitment. </p>
<p>Freedom has its limits but it does reflect the reality of difference. Democracy is important as it provides an effective means of sorting out the question of power. Social justice is never easy to find but it is needed to hold society together in the face of power and market-driven inequalities.</p>
<p>Bringing values into the political equation in this way takes us to the great questions of democratic politics: What is the best way to elect our politicians and organise government? How do we avoid a tyranny of the majority? How do we bring together the potentially contradictory elements of liberty and equality? What is the relationship between nationalism and internationalism?</p>
<h2>Social Democracy</h2>
<p>There are many answers to these questions but I remain steadfast in my view that social democracy has the best – even if incomplete – answers. It urges the nation state to understand the limit of its power in a world of economic and environmental interdependence and in the nation itself, with its many and different regions and localities. That takes it to the ideas of globalism and federalism.</p>
<p>It urges governments at all levels to recognise not only the creative role of markets, but also the stabilising and unifying role of its own laws, regulations and initiatives. Social democracy is all about managed markets, and importantly, fairness in the distribution of the burdens and benefits associated with a market economy. It’s biased towards equality but understands the realities of economics.</p>
<p>Fairness is not just an end-in-itself, but also a means to facilitate wider goals – a more productive economy and a more sustainable environment. This is not just because of the positive productivity outcomes from tackling social inequality, ill-health and educational disadvantage, it is also a matter of politics in a divided society and what is needed to achieve consensus for change. That’s why a good deal of my thinking has been on the subjects of democratic reform, co-operative federalism, multiculturalism, and public sector effectiveness. </p>
<p>Indeed it is only through creative partnerships between politicians and their bureaucracies, within and between governments at all levels and between government and the community that big issues can be addressed.</p>
<h2>Pragmatism and progress</h2>
<p>There is I believe a distinction to be made between pragmatic politicians with an eye to the future, and pragmatic politicians with an eye to the next headline. It is possible for the idea of reform to stay alive and produce results – even in our current system with all its emphasis on publicity, events and personalities. It is, in fact, the challenge of leadership in a world of economic change and uncertainty, climate change and democratic upheaval. In such a world, “the future” can only be ignored for so long – the danger being that the populist genie cannot be put back into the bottle when that realisation comes.</p>
<p>It’s so much easier, however, to practice avoidance. This is not just the case for individuals but also for communities. Sometimes communities seek avoidance because it’s the easiest option for the here and now and the alternative is too demanding to practise. </p>
<p>More often than not, however, there are interests involved and the politics of complexity finds itself in a losing battle for numbers. Prophets and cynics there are many but good politicians are not so easy to find.</p>
<h2>The well-being agenda</h2>
<p>Nor can we afford to ignore the person in all our thinking and practice. This takes me to the last – and most difficult part of the story – the challenge of integrating “the person” into our thinking about and practice of public policy. We’ve taken on board the concept of well-being and a good deal of flesh has been added to its bones, through research and innovation, but we still have some way to go before it stands on its own feet as a guide for government and the community. </p>
<p>It’s certainly made advances from an earlier approach built around an overly subjective definition of “happiness”. However, concepts like “holistic government”, “sustainability” and “democratic renewal” – as creative and productive as they are- still battle for acceptance in the economically driven but seriously weakened industrial democracies of the west.</p>
<h2>Making ideas a reality</h2>
<p>Like all good ideas they are going to need numbers, organisation, passion and good leaders backing them up if they are to be realised. </p>
<p>Or to put it simply, they need a political vehicle to carry them.</p>
<p>It always comes back to politics in the end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/8029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The University of Sydney Graduate School of Government has received funding from Australian government to deliver executive programs here and overseas. Professor Gallop is a member of the ALP</span></em></p>The term political junkie gets bandied about a great deal, but this addict has no problem in admitting his habit. It’s been a pure joy to be able to read, think and write about politics and government…Geoff Gallop, Director, Graduate School of Government, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.