What does a politician who advances to the point of being able to make decisive choices most favour? Getting their policies across? Yes, but I would argue generally by the time politician makes it to a place where they can enact their policies, they might have one or two they’re willing to risk losing that power for—if you’re lucky! Generally enacting good decisions comes second to ensuring you’ll get back in next time.
If a politician highly values re-election, and retaining power, then voting on the basis of intelligence, rationality, etc is unlikely to result in the best decisions being made policy wise. Instead it is likely to result in the best decisions being made to increase that politician’s popularity, or otherwise result in the greatest chance of re-election. In this case, intelligence and rationality can easily become tools that actually distort that politician from making good policy decisions, because he or she can easily see the outcome of them.
For example, take a look at drug policy. To ther best of my knowledge, all evidence points that illegalising substances does little to reduce their use, and instead wastes taxpayer money, increases the power of organised crime and increases harm to those who choose to use illegalised substances. None of these outcomes are desirable, but poor drug policy persists. Why? Because it would cost a lot of political capital to address, results would take time to filter through, and your political rivals can hit you hard with populist nonsense in the mean time which will weaken your position electorally. Any intelligent person who values their own re-election is probably not going to risk implementing such a policy, even if all other considerations aside they thought it was for the best.
Why? Because it would cost a lot of political capital to address, results would take time to filter through, and your political rivals can hit you hard with populist nonsense in the mean time which will weaken your position electorally. Any intelligent person who values their own re-election is probably not going to risk implementing such a policy, even if all other considerations aside they thought it was for the best.
Perhaps I’ve been reading too much HP:MoR (not to mention Liar Game), but this strikes me as being a co-ordination problem. That is, nobody can come out in favor of a smart-but-vulnerable policy first, but if everybody could first agree to be in favor if -- and only if—everyone else agreed, then something could (perhaps) be done.
Now if only there were some sort of Dark Mark we could use… ;-)
If a politician highly values re-election, and retaining power, then voting on the basis of intelligence, rationality, etc is unlikely to result in the best decisions being made policy wise.
Possibly just my cynicism, but I’ve never observed integrity as having a particularly good survival rate in party politics. However, politicians have learnt a lot of tricks to imitate it. Further, often if a politician has integrity the party system will never the less strip them of their ability to make decisions based on integrity. This is reasonably Australia centric, though where parties have strong control over their politicians, and over the vast majority of the vote. It’s possible other systems which have weaker party control could differ?
I feel I should note, I am a huge critic of party systems in general, and of the particular functioning parties we have in Australia on precisely these grounds though. Ideally, I agree with you that one should be able to vote note on an issue, but on the intelligence and integrity of someone running. Unfortunately for the vast majority of people the party is the determining factor in who they vote for (and not even really the party, but in fact whoever the current leader of the party is).
If I vote in a smart Liberal party politician, I can expect him to break from the party line maybe once or twice before he starts to jeopardise his standing in the party and thus the support he’ll receive in the next election. (And that is in fact extremely generous. Few would get away with voting against party lines.) If I vote for a smart Labor party politician, I can expect that she’ll vote with her party at all times unless the Labor party explicitly allows a conscience vote on an issue. Failing to do so will lead her to not have support at the next election, or to be removed from the party entirely.
Under these circumstances, the best I can hope for by voting along lines of intelligence or rationality is having a better voice in the party room when they decide what policies and legislation to introduce. However, I can expect that most others in the party room will be running first and foremost on what they believe will get them re-elected. Even an intelligent, well-analysed, rational, passionate argument with integrity can be expected to be defeated if it jeopardises the party’s standing.
By instead voting along issue lines, even if I think the candidate in question less competent is to demonstrate to the parties that people are willing to give them their vote in support of policy x. This works poorly, but I am unsure of any better strategy.
As for voting for independents instead, I am in favour of this, but the sad fact of the matter is that the media coverage just doesn’t pay enough attention to them to give me any reasonable grounds to form an opinion on their intelligence or integrity. The best indicator is usually the issues they support or oppose.
What does a politician who advances to the point of being able to make decisive choices most favour? Getting their policies across? Yes, but I would argue generally by the time politician makes it to a place where they can enact their policies, they might have one or two they’re willing to risk losing that power for—if you’re lucky! Generally enacting good decisions comes second to ensuring you’ll get back in next time.
If a politician highly values re-election, and retaining power, then voting on the basis of intelligence, rationality, etc is unlikely to result in the best decisions being made policy wise. Instead it is likely to result in the best decisions being made to increase that politician’s popularity, or otherwise result in the greatest chance of re-election. In this case, intelligence and rationality can easily become tools that actually distort that politician from making good policy decisions, because he or she can easily see the outcome of them.
For example, take a look at drug policy. To ther best of my knowledge, all evidence points that illegalising substances does little to reduce their use, and instead wastes taxpayer money, increases the power of organised crime and increases harm to those who choose to use illegalised substances. None of these outcomes are desirable, but poor drug policy persists. Why? Because it would cost a lot of political capital to address, results would take time to filter through, and your political rivals can hit you hard with populist nonsense in the mean time which will weaken your position electorally. Any intelligent person who values their own re-election is probably not going to risk implementing such a policy, even if all other considerations aside they thought it was for the best.
Perhaps I’ve been reading too much HP:MoR (not to mention Liar Game), but this strikes me as being a co-ordination problem. That is, nobody can come out in favor of a smart-but-vulnerable policy first, but if everybody could first agree to be in favor if -- and only if—everyone else agreed, then something could (perhaps) be done.
Now if only there were some sort of Dark Mark we could use… ;-)
You stripped “integrity” out of that list.
Possibly just my cynicism, but I’ve never observed integrity as having a particularly good survival rate in party politics. However, politicians have learnt a lot of tricks to imitate it. Further, often if a politician has integrity the party system will never the less strip them of their ability to make decisions based on integrity. This is reasonably Australia centric, though where parties have strong control over their politicians, and over the vast majority of the vote. It’s possible other systems which have weaker party control could differ?
I feel I should note, I am a huge critic of party systems in general, and of the particular functioning parties we have in Australia on precisely these grounds though. Ideally, I agree with you that one should be able to vote note on an issue, but on the intelligence and integrity of someone running. Unfortunately for the vast majority of people the party is the determining factor in who they vote for (and not even really the party, but in fact whoever the current leader of the party is).
If I vote in a smart Liberal party politician, I can expect him to break from the party line maybe once or twice before he starts to jeopardise his standing in the party and thus the support he’ll receive in the next election. (And that is in fact extremely generous. Few would get away with voting against party lines.) If I vote for a smart Labor party politician, I can expect that she’ll vote with her party at all times unless the Labor party explicitly allows a conscience vote on an issue. Failing to do so will lead her to not have support at the next election, or to be removed from the party entirely.
Under these circumstances, the best I can hope for by voting along lines of intelligence or rationality is having a better voice in the party room when they decide what policies and legislation to introduce. However, I can expect that most others in the party room will be running first and foremost on what they believe will get them re-elected. Even an intelligent, well-analysed, rational, passionate argument with integrity can be expected to be defeated if it jeopardises the party’s standing.
By instead voting along issue lines, even if I think the candidate in question less competent is to demonstrate to the parties that people are willing to give them their vote in support of policy x. This works poorly, but I am unsure of any better strategy.
As for voting for independents instead, I am in favour of this, but the sad fact of the matter is that the media coverage just doesn’t pay enough attention to them to give me any reasonable grounds to form an opinion on their intelligence or integrity. The best indicator is usually the issues they support or oppose.