Art Of Compromise Essay Research Paper I

?Art Of Compromise? Essay, Research Paper

I. The label “art of compromise” and it’s reference to

politics.

Politics is referred to as the “art of compromise”. It

is essential to a democratic society. Elected officials meet in

legislative chambers to hammer out policies that all constituents

can live with. Successful politicians learn early on the

survival value of compromise. Economist Donald Wittman (1995:

154) correctly observes, “That is what good politicians do:

create coalitions and find acceptable compromises.” Also

political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain (1995: 61) states “But

compromise is not a mediocre way to do politics; it is an

adventure, the only way to do democratic politics.”

II. Reasons why compromise is essential.

Politicians need to be able to compromise and be good

at bargaining with other elected officials. One reason is that in

order to get what is important to them, they must be willing to

negotiate with others who also want support, it’s is a trade off

in that each wants support for the their cause and in turn, must

support someone else’s cause as well. They must do this type of

bargaining in order to win enough support to get the votes

necessary to win for their constituents. If the constituents

don’t see that the elected official can bring home the bacon,

they won’t vote for them in the next election. In other words,

without compromise, nothing will be acheived for the

contituency, and as a result the official will not likely

continue to hold office for long.

By the same token, no politicians or voters, will get everything

they want. There must be a majority to implement policy, which

means that means that almost every time supporters of policy will

have to give up something of value to others in order to win

enough support for their cause. This is referred to as

“logrolling.” In order to function well, Congress needs members

who understand the need for and have the ability to compromise;

who are willing to be team players and fight for what they

believe without demonizing their opponents, so that they may work

with them again on different issues. A politician who refuses to

compromise is typically labeled as an “ideologue”, a title which

has little prestige among members of political class.

III. Backlash of compromise and the role politics play

in regard to effectiveness of compromise.

Politicians who are known for compromise are less

attractive in the public opinion. The public prefers rigid

adherence to principles they believe are important, and don’t

generally understand the essential need for compromise, or how

necessary it is to get things done. Because compromise is

essential to being effective for the constituency, each

legislator is confronted by the difficult task of being an expert

compromiser in legislatures while appearing to voters to be an

uncompromising champion of principle.

Democratic politics falls short of achieving optimal

compromise not only because of immoderate ideological restraints

imposed on representatives by voters, but also because it

displaces arrangements which could achieve a far greater amount

of progress. Politics stifle more beneficial compromise than it

promotes. President George Bush Sr. learned how damaging a

non-compliant attitude in regards to his 1990 “read my lips, no

new taxes” campaign pledge. President Bush Sr. did what comes

naturally to all politicians: compromise first and worry about

ideology later. However, his problem was he was caught in the act

and his political rivals easily portrayed his character as an

unprincipled leader. He stated “The biggest mistake of my

presidency was that I damaged my credibility by agreeing to a tax

increase…I worked a compromise and it cost me plenty” (Bush

1996). However, when Ronald Reagan compromised during his

presidency, he had such refined communication skills that he was

able to deflect the public’s attention from his compromises, and

focus it instead on his proudly proclaimed ideological beliefs.

Institutional effectiveness requires officials with a relatively

long time goals who see policy making as an ongoing process in

which there are no final winners and should be no total losers.

IV. A voice by all is not heard.

The political bargaining table only has a limited

number of seats. While all parties at the table must compromise

amongst themselves, they are the lucky few to have a say in what

will be compromised upon. Individual citizens rarely have

political influence. Political influence requires that people be

organized into lobbying groups of sufficient size and with

sufficient resources to attract the attentions of elected

officials. Politics is weak at compromise because politics

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