Politics and the Art of Compromise

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Politics and the Art of Compromise

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 ...

... middle of paper ...

...y deserve to have a voice

about all policy making which goes on behind closed doors, and

away from public view. However, compromise should be more open

and accepted by the public, criticized and debated upon, in order

for our society to be considered a true democracy.

Bibliography:

Sources

Bush, G. (1996) "Notable & Quotable." In Wall Street

Journal, 26 January: A10.

Crew, M.A., and Twight, C. (1990) "On the Efficiency of

Law: A Public Choice Perspective." Public Choice

66:15-36

Elshtain. J.B. (1995) Democracy on Trial. New York:

Basic Books.

Sinclair, B. (1996) Vote for Me: Politics in America.

American Political Science Association, September,

1996.

Wittman, D.A. (1995) The Myth of Democratic Failure.

Chicago: University of Chicago

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