The policy-politics conundrum

A politician's job is to represent what the people on the ground feel and voice their concerns but it is also the politician's job to change the public narrative on things for the better instead of just getting held hostage by it. But the nature of politics in a democracy is such that it incentivizes leaders to become echo chambers of their constituencies, impairing policy-making with short-sightedness. So, a political leader often finds himself/herself caught in this conundrum of politics and policy.

Gaining political power is crucial to the survival of an ideology and fulfilling ideological commitments. So it is pragmatic for anyone to arrive at a compromise that resonates with some electoral base and does not corrupt the core ideas of the political entity. But the problem starts arising when the governance and policy matters start losing nuance for the sake of electoral gains. For example, take the case of climate change, a scientifically proven fact that has been caught in an ideological battle in the US. Donald Trump to resonate and consolidate his voter base did not sign the Paris agreement and calls it some left-liberal agenda. The problem lies in the fact that Donald Trump does not want the US to lead the climate change battle as it ultimately involves a burden on the US citizens in some or the other form via taxation. Well, you can argue whether the US should lead the green initiatives around the globe or not but calling it some kind of conspiracy is just absurd. Instead of rhetoric, Trump could have chosen to present how in the short term the US citizens might face the burden, but in the long run, it would yield a positive return on investment and thus could have found an optimum way of dealing with it. Instead, the green and sustainability policy questions have become yet another political rhetoric. Today's politics seems like a marketing campaign having a catchy tagline in its case popular rhetoric while the facts and nuance are reduced to the asterisk of the advertisement that no one cares about.

It is not all the politician's fault after all. We live in a hyper-polarised world and the social media further adds to our confirmation bias. The political lines are so sharply drawn that one cannot afford to dial down on one's rhetoric or even have a change of stance. It therefore becomes difficult to build a consensus among policy stakeholders. The key lies in decoupling an issue from politics while the policy questions are deliberated upon to possibly avoid policy paralysis. But this in itself sounds like an oxymoron and is a characteristic of the times we live in today.

In the end, we all are dead but this does not grant a policymaker the license to rob the future to fund the present nor the voter the right to issue such licenses to politicians. If the nuance is left out of the public discourse then we are just left with opinions masquerading as facts. It is high time for everyone to reflect and ponder where the politics of the day is headed and course correct before democracy becomes just about rhetoric.

Image Credits: Policy Press