Group Polarization And Competi

On Tuesday, November 14, 1995, in what has been perceived as the years biggest non- devote d give birtht, the internal good-looking medication shut down all in all non-essential services cod to what was, for all told intents and purposes, a game of national chicken surrounded by the stick out singer and the Pre sident. And, at an estimated cost of 200 million dollars a day, this enigmatic battle of dueling egos did non come cheap (Bradsher, 1995, p.16). why do politicians find it almost congenitally impractical to cooperate? What is it almost policy-making sympathies and mogul that seem to invariably put them at odds with reasoned establishment? Indeed, is an incumbranceive, easy stockpile political science change surface possible given the current adversarial relationship between our 2 main semi semi politicsal parties? It would seem that the exercise of force-out for its own sake, and a warfare-ridden postal service in which unitary side mustiness always oppose the other(a) on each issue, is incompatible with the co motion and via media inevitable for the presidency to function. As the United States becomes a lot extreme in its beliefs in general, concourse polarisation and contention, which requires a mutual exclusivity of goal increase, go away preface to more than showdown situations in which the goal of trusty controlment gives way to governmental deport and ply-mongering. In this paper I will analyze young policy-making demeanor in terms of twain accompanimentors: aggroup style with an emphasis on polarization, and competition. However, unmatchable should keep in mind that these two factors be interrelated. root polarization t leftovers to aggravate inter- class competition by cause any two groups who initially disagree farther by in their several(prenominal) views. In romp, a competitive situation in which one side must fall back in revisal for the other to win (an d governmental situations be nearly always! competitive), will codify the differences between groups - leading to farther extremism by those pursuit maculation deep down the group - and thus, to win group polarization. In the above example, the two main combatants, circuit invoice Clinton and spic-and-spant Gingrich, were virtually forced to take inexorable, disparate views because of the truly constitution of indorsement within their respective political groups. Group polarization refers to the tendency of groups to gravitate to the extreme of whatever conceit the group sh bes (Baron & Graziano, 1991, p.498-99). Therefore, if the extreme is seen as a desirable characteristic, individuals who showing extreme beliefs will put on authority with referent business leader. In other words, they will encounter characteristics that other group particles admire and seek to emulate (p. 434). Unfortunately, this circle of polarization and authority potbelly lead to a bizarre relieve oneself of one-upsmanshi p in which each group member seeks to make headway index finger and panegyric by being more extreme than the others. The end burden is extremism in the hobby of authority without any fancy to the practicality or indicateableness of the beliefs in head word. Since the direction of polarization is currently in opposite directions in our two party t go forth itk, it is almost impossible to find a common territory between them. In addition, the competitive reputation of the two party system galore(postnominal) judgment of convictions eliminates even the possible action of agree since failure unremarkably leads to a devastating loss of agent. If both(prenominal) victory and extremism are necessary to retain effect within the group, and if, as Alfie Kohn (1986) state in his book No know: The Case Against Competition, competition is mutually exclusive goal attainment (one side must lose in ordinate for the other to win), then compromise and cooperation are imp ossible (p. 136). This is especially so if the oppon! ents are consecrate to retaining power at all costs. That power is an end in itself is made clear by the recent resolution of the government. It served no logical purpose. Beyond costing a lot of money, it had no discernible effect except as a power struggle between two political heavyweights. According to David Kipnis (1976, cited in Baron & Graziano, 1991), one of the negative effect of power is, in fact, the tendency to calculate it as its own end, and to ignore the possibility of disastrous forgets from the reckless use of power (p. 433). Therefore, it would seem that (at least in this human face) government policy is created and implemented, non with regard to its effectivity as government policy, scarcely scarcely with regard to its cherish as a tool for accumulating and maintaining power. another(prenominal) of Kipniss negative effects of power is the tendency to use it for self-centered purposes (p.433). In politics this can be seen as the taste towards ma king statements for compendious term political gain that are either wonky or contrasted to past positions held by the candidates themselves. duration this whitethorn not be the use of essential power, it is an attempt to gain political take outice (and therefore power) without regard for the real value or implications of a policy for good government. A florescence example of this behavior can be seen in the astray divergent political stances taken by regulator Pete Wilson of California. At this point I should qualify my own political position. composition I do tend to take to the woods towards the Democratic side of the political spectrum (this is undoubtedly what brought Pete Wilson to my attending in the send-off place), I examine Governor Wilson because he is such(prenominal) a establish example of both polarization and pandering in the competitive pursuit of power. Accordingly, I will try to sway my political biases in check. In any case, selfish, power see king behavior is meditateed in Wilsons recently aban! doned bowel private road for professorship. Although he arrangedly control out give-up the ghostning for President during his flake gubernatorial campaign, directly after he was re-elected he inform that he was forming a committee to explore the possibility. And, in fact, he did strive an futile run for the Republican nomination. In both cases (presidential and gubernatorial elections), he justified his seemingly contradictory positions in terms of his trading to the great deal(No Author 1995). This begs the question; was it the calling that was contradictory, or was it Wilsons political aspirations. In either case it seems clear that his finish was scantily based on principles of good government. Even if Wilson thought he had a greater duty to the nation as a whole (and Im being humane here), he might down argueed that before he ran for governor a blurb time. It would face much more possible that the greater power inbred in the presidency was the find f orce behind Wilsons decision. Ironi chaty, Wilsons loss for potential power whitethorn cause him to lose the power he actually has. Since his decision to run for President was resoundingly unpopular with Californians, and since he whitethorn be perceived as unable to fence in national politics due to his withdrawal from the presidential race, his political power may be fatally impaired. This behavior shows not only a over style for good government, but excessively a strange unfitness to defer gratification. There is no reason that Pete Wilson couldnt have run for President after his second term as Governor had expired. His selfish pursuit of power for its own sake was so absolute that it inhibited him from see the very political realities that gave him power in the first place. In his attempt to gain power, Wilson managed to win over his stance on virtually every issue he had ever encountered. From in-migration to affirmative action - from tax cuts to stillbirth rights, he has swung clxxx degrees (Thurm, 1995). The poin! t here is not his inconsistency, but instead the fact that it is improbable that considerations of effective government would impart these kinds of swings. And, while mountain may dismiss this behavior as merely the political game playing that all candidates interlace in, it is the pervasiveness of this behavior - to the extrusion of any governmental considerations - that make it trouble as well as intriguing. Polarization is also evident in this example. Since Pete Wilson showed no inherent loyalty toward a feature ideology, it is entirely believably that had the Republican party been drifting towards a centrist position instead than an extreme right-wing position, Wilson would have accordingly been more moderate in his political pronouncements. The polarization towards an extreme is what caused him to make such radical changes in his beliefs. It is, of course, thorny to tell to what point political intransigence is a conscious strategy, or an unconscious motivatio n toward power, but the end result is the same - political leadership that is not conducive (or even relevant) to good government. The aim of competition in our political system is an inherently contradictory one. We accept the fact that politicians must compete ruthlessly to gain office using whatever simulated military operation are necessary to win. We then, somehow, expect them to completely change their behavior once they are elected. At that point we expect cooperation, compromise, and a statesmanlike attitude. Alfie Kohn (1986) points out that this expectation is entirely unrealistic (p. 135). He also states that, Depriving adversaries of personalities, of faces , of their subjectivity, is a strategy we automatically adopt in order to win (p.139). In other words, the very nature of competition requires that we treat concourse as hostile objects rather than as human beings. It is, therefore, unlikely, once an election is over and the member of government is supposed to begin, that politicians will be able to allow an! d forget in order to carry on with the agate stock certificate at hand. Once again, in the recent government resolution we can see this same sort of difficulty. House vocalizer Newt Gingrich, whose competitive political relationship with Bill Clinton has been restive at best, blamed his own (Gingrichs) handling of the budget negotiations that resulted in the shutdown, on his poor manipulation during an airplane f chicness that he and the President were on (Turque & Thomas, 1995, p. 28). One can look at this issue from both sides. On the one hand, dusty intervention on an airplane flight is hardly a reason to close the U.S. government. On the other hand, if the shabby treatment occurred, was it a wise thing for the President to do in light of the delicate negotiations that were going on at the time? In both cases, it seems that all concerned were, in effect, blind by their competitive hostility. They both presumably wantd to run the government well (we assume thats why they ran for office in the first place), but they couldnt overcome their hostility long decent to run it at all. If the Speaker is to be believed (although he has since time-tested to resign his statements), the entire episode resulted not from a rightful(a) discord approximately how to govern well, but from the competitive desire to leave out government. Indeed, when one examines the eventual compromise that was reached, there seems to be no significant difference in the positions of the two parties. If this is so, why was it necessary to waste millions of dollars shutting down the government and then outset it up again a a couple of(prenominal) days ulterior? Whats more, this entire useless episode will be reenacted in mid-December. One can only rely that Clinton and Gingrich avoid travel together until an agreement is reached. Although people always complain about government and about the ineffectiveness of politicians, they rarely examine the causes of these pr oblems. While there is a lot of attention paid to ca! mpaign finance reform, lobbying reform, PAC reform, and the peddling of influence, we neer seem to meet that, most of the time, politicians are merely giving us what they ideate we hope. If they are weak and dominated by polls, arent they really move to find out the will of the people in order to comply with it? If they are extremist and uncompromising in their political stances, arent they simply reflecting the extremism prevalent in our dry land today? If politicians compromise, we call them weak, and if they dont we call them extremist. If we are unhappy with our government, perhaps it is because we expect the people who run it to do the impossible. They must reflect the will of a large, disparate electorate, and yet be speed of light percent consistent in their ideology. However, if we look at political behavior in terms of our own polarized, partisan attitudes, and if we can find a way to either reduce the competitive nature of campaigns, or reconcile pre-election hostility with post-election statesmanship, then we may find a way to elect politicians on the stern of how they will govern rather than how they run. It may be bid to dismiss all this as merely the way politics is or posit that competition is human nature, or perhaps opine that these behaviors are essentially harmless. But consider these two examples. It has been speculated that President Lyndon B. Johnson was unwilling to get out of the Vietnam war because he didnt want to be remembered as the first American President to lose a war. If this is true, it means that thousands of people, both American and Vietnamese, died in order to protect one mans status. In okey City, a federal building was bombed in 1994, killing hundreds of men, women, and children. The say perpetrators were a group of extreme, right wing, constitutionalists who were apparently trying to turn frustration with the federal government into open revolution. I do not forecast these examples are aberrati ons or flukes, but are, instead, indicatory of struc! tural defects in our political system. If we are not advised of the dangers of extremism and competition, we may, in the end, be destroyed by them. References Baron, B.M., & Graziano, W.G. (1991). Social Psychology. fortify Worth, TX. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Bradsher, K. (1995, November 18). Country may be losing money with government closed. The New York Times, pp.16 Kohn, A. (1986). No Contest: The Case Against Competition. Boston, Houghton Mifflin. No Author. (1995, March 24). [internet] What Wilson has state about ledger entry race. San Jose Mercury News Online. manoeuvre:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil324s.htm Thurm, S. (1995, August 29). [internet] Wilsons announcement more of an ad: California governor kicks off drive for GOP presidential nomination. San Jose Mercury News Online. Address:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil829.htm Turgue, B., & Thomas, E. (1995, November 27). miss the moment. Newsweek, pp.26-29. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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