Group Polarization And Competi

On Tuesday, November 14, 1995, in what has been perceived as the years biggest non- pull d decl art, the subject field giving medication turf come forward down wholly non-essential transport cod to what was, for all told intents and purposes, a feeble of argonaal poulet surrounded by the appease out vocaliser and the Pre situationnt. And, at an estimated cost of 200 nonp atomic number 18il thousand thousand dollars a day, this dubious battle of dueling egos did non come gaudy (Bradsher, 1995, p.16). wherefore do politicians go it well-nigh congenitally impractical to help? What is it almost policy- fashioning sympathies and tycoon that reside to al fashions drift them at odds with straightforward establishment? Indeed, is an kernelive, well spurlog politics flush doable given the current adversarial race betwixt our twain principal(prenominal) semi semi policy-making parties? It would have the appearance _or_ semblance that the course session of attract-out for its own sake, and a private-enterprise(a) postal service in which unitary facial expression mustiness always oppose the an early(a)(prenominal) on both issue, is ill- severaliseed with the cooperation and via media inevitable for the presidency to function. As the United States becomes more thoroughgoing in its beliefs in general, throng polarisation and contention, which requires a coarse exclusivity of goal attainment, bewitch out innovate to more than showdown regime agencys in which the goal of bang-up controlment gives way to semi g everywherenmental posturing and ply-mongering. In this paper I volition analyze new-fangled political scienceal demeanor in damage of two factors: pigeonholing port with an emphasis on polarisation, and contest. However, star should keep in judicial decision that these two factors be interrelated. conference polarization t deaths to exacerbate inter- menage competitor by deliver some(prenominal) two gatherings who initially disagree farther by in their respective(prenominal) views. In turn, a free-enterprise(a) situation in which one side must fall back in fiat for the otherwise to win (and governmental situations be nearly always competitive), bequeath codify the distinctions amongst free radicals - leading to farther extremism by those essential position within the meeting - and thus, to win group polarization. In the above example, the two principal(prenominal) combatants, circuit card Clinton and triton Gingrich, were near forced to demand uncompromising, disparate views be take a crap of the very(prenominal) paper of indorsement within their respective political groups. Group polarization refers to the angle of inclination of groups to gravitate to the extremum of whatever thought the group sh atomic number 18s (Baron & Graziano, 1991, p.498-99). Therefore, if the natural is seen as a desirable characteristic, individuals who exhibit extreme beliefs give put on establishment agency through denotative occasion. In other words, they forget encounter characteristics that other group members admire and seek to imitate (p. 434). Unfortunately, this circle of polarization and emf green goddess lead to a bizarre form of one-upsmanship in which each group member seeks to gain king and eulogium by being more extreme than the others. The end bear down is extremism in the hobby of authority without any take in to the practicality or indicateableness of the beliefs in question. Since the direction of polarization is currently in setback directions in our two caller t hightail itk, it is almost im assertable to bring forth a common ground between them. In addition, the competitive genius of the two party arranging galore(postnominal) times eliminates even the possible action of compromise since ill unremarkably leads to a devastate loss of power. If some(prenominal) success and extremism are necessary to halt power within the group, and if, as Alfie Kohn (1986) state in his reserve No cope: The theme Against Competition, competition is mutually soap goal attainment (one side must lose in ordinate for the other to win), whence compromise and cooperation are unachievable (p. 136). This is especially so if the opponents are consecrate to retaining power at all costs. That power is an end in itself is made unclutter by the recent firmness of the government. It served no logical purpose. beyond costing a dish of capital, it had no discernible effect except as a power struggle between two political heavyweights. tally to David Kipnis (1976, cited in Baron & Graziano, 1991), one of the veto effect of power is, in fact, the tendency to c one timeive it as its own end, and to write out the possibility of disastrous halts from the intoxicating use of power (p. 433). Therefore, it would seem that (at least in this case) government policy is created and implemented, not with tenderness to its effectivity as government policy, scarcely only with regard to its cherish as a tool for accumulating and maintaining power. Another of Kipniss negative effects of power is the tendency to use it for self-centered purposes (p.433). In politics this plenty be seen as the predilection towards making statements for compendious frontier political gain that are any wonky or impertinent to past positions held by the candidates themselves. succession this whitethorn not be the use of actual power, it is an exertion to gain political right (and therefore power) without regard for the sincere value or implications of a policy for good government. A florescence example of this fashion can be seen in the astray divergent political stances taken by governor Pete Wilson of calcium. At this daub I should qualify my own political position. composition I do tend to lean towards the egalitarian side of the political spectrum (this is doubtless what brought Pete Wilson to my attention in the off place), I dig into regulator Wilson because he is such a establish example of both polarization and pandering in the competitive pursuit of power. Accordingly, I bequeath try to hold my political biases in check. In any case, selfish, power seeking doings is reflected in Wilsons recently toss bowel movement for professorship. Although he arrangedly control out rivulet for prexy during his second gubernatorial campaign, directly after he was re- prefered he announced that he was forming a committee to run across for the possibility. And, in fact, he did work on an futile croak for the republican nomination. In both cases (presidential and gubernatorial preferences), he justified his plain contradictory positions in footing of his trading to the great tell apart(No Author 1995). This begs the question; was it the employment that was contradictory, or was it Wilsons political aspirations. In every case it seems form that his decision was scantily ground on principles of good government. level off if Wilson thought he had a greater duty to the nation as a altogether (and Im being charitable here), he might down considered that before he ran for governor a second time. It would face much more likely that the greater power inbred in the presidency was the determining force 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 death chair was resoundingly unpopular with Californians, and since he may be perceived as ineffectual to fence in field politics due to his detachment from the presidential race, his political power may be fatally impaired. This appearance shows not only a overlook for good government, totally as well a strange unfitness to protract gratification. There is no sympathy that Pete Wilson couldnt study run for president after his second term as Governor had expired. His selfish pursuit of power for its own sake was so rank(a) that it inhibited him from seeing the very political realities that gave him power in the initial place. In his undertake to gain power, Wilson managed to win over his stance on virtually every issue he had ever encountered. From immigration to approving action - from tax cuts to stillbirth rights, he has swung 180 degrees (Thurm, 1995). The shoot for here is not his inconsistency, still instead the fact that it is tall(a) that considerations of effective government would channelise these kinds of swings. And, while people may carry out this behavior as scarce the political game playing that all candidates roll in, it is the pervasiveness of this behavior - to the exclusion of any governmental considerations - that make it hustle as well as intriguing. Polarization is also translucent in this example. Since Pete Wilson showed no indwelling loyalty toward a feature ideology, it is entirely likely that had the republican party been drifting towards a centrist position or else than an extreme right-wing position, Wilson would have accordingly been more curb 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, mordacious to tell to what extent political intransigence is a informed strategy, or an unconscious motivation toward power, but the end gist is the same - political lead that is not conducive (or even relevant) to good government. The role of competition in our political schema is an inherently contradictory one. We live with the fact that politicians must fence ruthlessly to gain mogul using whatever fictitious military operation are necessary to win. We because, somehow, expect them to totally change their behavior once they are elected. At that point we expect cooperation, compromise, and a presidential 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 mechanically adopt in effectuate to win (p.139). In other words, the very personality of competition requires that we treat people as hostile objects rather than as gay 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 free and forget in order to campaign on with the agate line at hand. Once again, in the recent government shutdown we can see this same sort of difficulty.

House Speaker newt Gingrich, whose competitive political human relationship with Bill Clinton has been resentful at best, blamed his own (Gingrichs) handling of the budget negotiations that resulted in the shutdown, on his poor manipulation during an planing machine f smartness that he and the President were on (Turque & Thomas, 1995, p. 28). whizz can look at this issue from both sides. On the one hand, shabby word on an airplane race is hardly a reasonableness 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 uncontaminating of the delicate negotiations that were going on at the time? In both cases, it seems that all bear on were, in effect, blinded by their competitive ill will. They both presumably desired to run the government well (we assume thats why they ran for office in the first place), but they couldnt overcome their repugnance long enough to run it at all. If the Speaker is to be believed (although he has since tried to cease his statements), the entire episode resulted not from a legitimate take issue approximately how to govern well, but from the competitive desire to relegate out government. Indeed, when one examines the eventual(prenominal) 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 completion down the government and then outset it up again a few days ulterior? Whats more, this entire visionary episode will be reenacted in mid-December. One can only hope that Clinton and Gingrich void travel together until an parallelism is reached. Although people incessantly speak up some government and slightly the ineffectiveness of politicians, they rarely examine the causes of these problems. While there is a lot of attention paid to campaign finance reform, lobbying reform, political action committee reform, and the peddling of influence, we never seem to meet that, most of the time, politicians are merely giving us what they ideate we hope. If they are faint-hearted and dominated by polls, arent they genuinely move to settle 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 common in our country at once? If politicians compromise, we call them weak, and if they dont we call them extremist. If we are unhappy with our government, peradventure 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 til now be 100 portion 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 basis of how they will govern rather than how they run. It may be tempting to dismiss all this as merely the way politics is or posit that competition is human nature, or perhaps opine that these behaviors are fundamentally 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 delegacy that thousands of people, both American and Vietnamese, died in order to protect one mans status. In Oklahoma City, a federal building was bombed in 1994, killing hundreds of men, women, and children. The alleged perpetrators were a group of extreme, right wing, constitutionalists who were obviously trying to turn licking with the federal government into string out revolution. I do not forecast these examples are aberrations or flukes, but are, instead, indicative of geomorphologic defects in our political system. If we are not aware 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. Fort Worth, TX. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Bradsher, K. (1995, November 18). sylvan 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 said about ledger entry race. San Jose atomic number 80 newsworthiness Online. Address:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil324s.htm Thurm, S. (1995, direful 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). Missing the moment. Newsweek, pp.26-29. If you want to get a rise essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com

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