What is a Mandate?

In the most often used setting, it is really hard to tell. Every party with a majority in one house of the legislature says it has a “mandate” to do what at least some of the candidates promised to do in their most recent campaigns. President Obama claimed he has a mandate to deal with the nation’s healthcare woes as a result of his victory in 2008.

That isn’t the clearest meaning of the term, certainly. The handily available Latin source is the verb mando, “to command.” The Congress, for instance, “commands the Environmental Protection Agency to start obeying the law and the EPA fights back, saying the Congress does not have the right to mandate such an action The Congress demands that certain states where minority voting has been suspiciously low actually register minority citizens and allow them to vote. The demand was specific and was backed up by the kind of penalties that catch the imagination. Those are mandates.

What do the voters “demand?” That’s harder. The EPA decision was 5-4. You could say that five justices demanded that the law be obeyed and four demanded that it not be obeyed. Both are mandates; one carries the prestige and power of the Court and the other does not.

Command, connotes, at the very least, that only one thing is being demanded, but in popular votes, contrary things are being demanded. The voters are apparently not of one mind.
But if they were of one mind, what would they be saying? One of the simplest divisions of the popular vote is among those who vote for a candidate, those who vote for a party, and those who vote for the candidate closest to the voter’s stand on some issue. Imagine, in that case, a unanimous vote for Barak Obama in 2008. That would be 69,498,215 votes for Obama. Now imagine that 23 million voted for him because he was black (a candidate-oriented vote); 23 million voted for him because he was a Democrat (a party-oriented vote); and 23 million voted for him because he promised to end the war in Iraq promptly. What is his mandate? Keep on being black? Continue being a Democrat?

In fact, I think things are more confusing than that. Many voters have a sense that there ought to be a balance in public policies and they feel, sometimes, that “things have gone too far.” I don’t want to have to be the one to say that things could not go too far, but it seems to me that “too far” requires a single policy axis. Most often, the political arguments are not made on a single policy axis. Take the current wariness about the necessary budget reductions, for instance. If the policy axis is “live within our means,” then people are overwhelmingly in favor of it. If the policy axis is “do without crucially important government services,” then people are overwhelmingly opposed to it. If the policy in question does both, how shall we determine a “mandate?”

I think this sense of “too far” is a little like the thermostat. We get to “too cold” and the thermostat kicks the furnace on. We get to “too warm” and it kicks the furnace off—or, in some homes, kicks the furnace off and the AC on. The thermostat works on what I call a single policy axis. It doesn’t have a setting for “using too much of the world’s resources.” It doesn’t have a setting that says, “Conservation is the same as a reduction in the demand for energy; get a sweater.” It’s just on and off.

But I think it’s worse than that. The thermostat doesn’t have a minority vote, so that it can kick the furnace on by 5-4 but the minority is large enough to keep the AC on as well. The thermostat doesn’t take reaching the “send a message to the furnace” temperature, decide enough is enough, and send a crew down to rip out the furnace. The public, operating as it does on multiple policy axes, doesn’t so much turn on and off the furnace, as send a crew down to tear out the furnace; then another crew to install a furnace, when it gets cold.

Of course, that would be more expensive, but the Framers didn’t give us democracy because it was efficient. They gave us a democracy because they had just fought a war against “efficient” and wanted to see how “inefficient” would suit us. I think they really nailed it. The government they designed was just perfect—for the 18th Century.

I have a dream

My dream is to have a member of this class hear an argument that goes like this and respond to it appropriately. The argument would be "We ought to be building a first-class workforce in our high schools, but we are not because we are not establishing high enough academic standards for our children." I have no criticism of that problem unless it is the only one available.

I would like you to stop and think a little. Then I would like for you to decide to respond or not as the situation requires and as you choose, bearing in mind that you can't fight all the wars at the same time. I'd like you to think: should we really be turning our high schools into workforce prep schools? Is that the best normative standard we can come up with? Is it better, for instance, than "help each child achieve his or her full potential as a citizen and a person as well as a worker?"

I'd like you to think: are we really not building a first-class workforce? Has it actually been studied or is this just bitching and moaning? Were the standards oriented toward innovation or toward skilled cheap labor? If the studies established the "smart and cheap" standard and what we really need is the "innovation" standard, then the FO doesn't follow at all. There is not, metaphorically speaking, "trash on the Park Blocks."

I'd like you to think: of all the available attributions, is this one the best? Will it lead to practical solutions? If "school-readiness" is the principal variable and the homes the principal resource, then "high standards" will simply further segregate the advantaged students from the disadvantaged, so maybe "high standards" will have externalities we don't want. If broad civic recognition of teachers as the heroes of learning--as "nation-builders" in President Obama's phrase--will solve about three quarters of our school problems, isn't that a better CA?

The "heroes of learning" standard, by the way, would plausibly allow much larger classes with much better achievement; much less administrative overhead; much more parental support; and much lower dropout rates because of the interpersonal attachments formed with the teachers, who are not high status figures. It isn't a slam dunk, but it is intriguing.

What I'd like is for you think all those things before you say anything at all. Then I want you to choose to enter the conversation or not and if you do, to choose an alternative that will have some hope of broadening out the policy discussion.

Sensible Government

Everyone wants it. And if everyone agreed about what was sensible, we'd have a pretty good chance of getting it. It's a democracy, right?

The New York Times this week had a really good piece on the politics of earmarks. You can see it here. It turns out that quite a few sincere politicians were elected by less sincere electorates to do away with earmarks. This has the possibility of ending the federal funding of projects that are crucially necessary to the district, but that were not valued very highly by the Office of Management and Budget.

This brings to the forefront a crucial distinction that everyone really knows, but that not everyone remembers in the biennial orgy of anti-government rhetoric--some earmarks are reasonable and necessary and others are frivolous and without merit. Hello? Project Control to Earth? Hello? Is anyone listening? Most elected officials will reliably choose frivolous projects that benefit their friends and neighbors over sensible projects that benefit only other districts. Why? Well, because the "let's apply the aggregate benefit test" candidates were defeated by the "if the money comes here, it's a good project" candidates. And now those have been defeated by the "anywhere the money goes is the wrong place if it is earmarked" candidates.

We did this to ourselves.

Many, perhaps most, antiabortion activists grant that in some particular instances, an abortion is the best thing for everyone concerned. It's sensible. But if you pass a law that allows discretion--the choice of abortion when it is the best thing but not when it is not the best thing--you will get indiscretion as well. People will make use of the new statutory latitude to do things that should not be done. Yes. They will. It's hard to tell, but, these activists are forced to argue, if we can't have sensible discretion, it is better to have no discretion at all. To ban sensible choices as the price of preventing unsensible choices.

Like the earmarks.

So even if everyone wants sensible government and even if there is a sizable area of agreement among the people about what is sensible and what is not, we can't have sensible government, because we won't elect people who will pass sensible earmarks and sensible abortion laws.

It's a conundrum.

Cool Pragmatism or Hot Populism

Some choice, huh? I saw that phrase in the February 7 New York Times and began to plan some place I could share it. The D and R leaders in the Senate are reaching an accord on the rules and may soon need only a majority vote to pass legislation. The President is speaking to the National Chamber of Commerce today hoping to suggest his openness to them and hoping to blunt their jihad against him.

Does anyone really want hot populism from the U. S. about what to do with the uprising in Egypt? On talks that could separate the Taliban in Afghanistan from al Qaeda? Or taking advantage of Raul Castro creeping moderation in Cuba?

The fact is that there are some things you get to say when you are running for office that could be really dangerous when you sit down behind the desk and have to decide to sign something or not. Nothing is better for getting elected that hot populism. For governing, not so much.

Centripetal Politics

Maybe it's because it's still football season, and will be until next Sunday evening, but I find my mind drifting in the direction of team ideas of freedom. It will not surprise anyone to notice that at any given level of individual engagement (low, medium, or high), the more freedom the team has, the less freedom any individual has.

I hope it will not become necessary to distinguish "freedom to act" from "freedom to decide," which I would call, "discretion" or "expertise" of "judgment" or something.

If I am the defensive coordinator, I call a defense and expect that everyone will go to the place on the field where he supposed to be and take on the responsibility he is supposed to have, whether he likes the assignment or not. If the players are free (to do what they want to do) then I am not free to call the defensive alignment.

But a football team is an institution, rather than a process. It is, in that way, like the U. S. Congress and unlike the information acquisition process or the value application process or the voting process. In the Congress, every representative feels the need to serve (at best) to placate (in the middle) or to distract (at worst) the voters in the district. I call that a centrifugal stress because it moves the rep away from the center of the institution--away, to follow the football example, from the defense that was called. Every representative needs to align himself or herself with the caucus position or pay the consequences, if any. I call that a centripetal stress, a "center-seeking stress." It emphasizes the exact performance of the defensive alignment I call.

I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that each major branch of government--I divide them into four pieces, executive, judicial, administrative, and legislative--has a characteristic pattern of centrifugal and centripetal forces. It occurred to me this week that the process part--the politics rather than government part--also has a balance of the two. I will want to think quickly here of three of those.

Coming to Public Judgment is not about the range of opinions on issues or the rapidity of change of those opinions or any short run enthusiasm for them. It is about the stability of an opinion, even when the whole set of likely consequences is examined. It is easy to use a foreign war as an example. The reasons for undertaking a military conflict rarely take into account the cost in "blood and treasure," as they say and when the war has begun, those are the costs most likely to be present in the minds of voters. If, following the centrifugal stresses model, predominant opinion returns to the center and is stable and can weather increased costs, we say the public has, as Daniel Yankelovich calls it, "come to public judgment."

Coverage of Conditions is a centrifugal emphasis of the effects of the media. Lance Bennett says we are quite likely to treat a story as a narrative episode, dramatizing the human effects. Such a story says very little about the institutions, which are important over the long term; it is not likely to be analytical or historical, both of which help to sustain policy interest over the long run. News which emphasizes the elements of a policy and the predictable outcomes will help citizens decide whether to support it or to begin to push for something better. Stories that are only "up close and personal" will not help us make those decisions.

Responsible Party Model (RPM) is a very disciplined model of party competition. Currently, candidates freelance their candidacies, decide what they are for or against, and if they are elected, "vote their consciences." This amount of "player freedom" gets in the road of any "team freedom" at all. To return to the football metaphor, RPM would be a radical change in politics, but it is the taken for granted condition of a defensive coordinator. In the RPM, the party recruits and funds the candidates, insists on fidelity to the party platform, maintains strong inter-branch cooperation among members of the party, and has strong legislative caucuses. Because of all that personal freedom forgone, this party can come back to the electorate, taking responsibility for the outcomes of their policies, and ask the electorate the kind of question they are best equipped to answer, which is, "Here is what we did. How do you like it?"

Two things struck me as I brought these together today. The first was the applicability of centrifugal and centripetal tendencies in the policy process. Here it is in public opinion; and again in media coverage; and here again in party competition. The second in that in opting for centripetal forces in all these areas, is there a substantial loss in the range of policies that can be considered? Yes, probably so. Is it worth it? Give me a little time on that one.

What to argue about

I have been teaching public policy here at PSU for almost fifteen years. During all that time, I have thought that making the distinction between a) what political actors are arguing about and b) what position each takes on the question they are arguing about, was "one of the major elements of the course." I am wondering today if it is THE major element of the course. Why would that be?

Is it counterintuitive? It's hard to think so. I am opposing you in the courtroom and you want to talk about how horribly heinous the crime was of which my client is accused. I want to talk about whether the evidence that he was involved at all, which was beaten out of him at the police station, is admissible in court. That seems clear enough, doesn't it? If I agree with the other attorney that the heinousness of the crime is the right thing to be talking about and my position is that the crime really wasn't all that heinous, I am going to lose and so is my client--his life, possibly. Unless he argues for an appeal on the grounds that his counsel was incompetent, which would certainly be the case.

My students want to argue aspects of the policy that they cannot possibly win. I want to teach them to look at the various kinds of arguments that are possible (I call the possibilities "axes," some call them "policy frames" or "problem formulations.'). If they know which ones are best for them and choose, let's say on moral grounds, that they want to argue the part of the issue that they will lose, I am fine with that in my role as a teacher. Teaching them the concept of "axis" and showing them how to separate one from another and how to tell which one will be best for them--or, in practice, for any political actor we might study--is my job. Which one they actually choose is their job.

But I'm not actually getting my job done. We are midway through the fifth week and I really believe that I could propose that the amount of work necessary to succeed in the course should be doubled because it would make them more competent students and engage most of them in a debate about whether it would or would not make them more competent. Let's pass by, for right now, what a silly thing that would be for me to propose. Let's talk, instead, about how silly it would be for them to accept "competence" as the right subject for debate. Any one of them might propose that we talk instead about a) the aggregate workload of university students or about b) the ethics of a professor suddenly doubling the amount of work required or about c) my responsibility to the syllabus, which specified the kinds of work to be done as well as the amount. They would win any of those three arguments, if...

...if they could see them. If they understood they can propose the axis they choose. If they can distinguish the course of the argument once the axis is established, and if they know what their own interests are.

The more likely it is that I could have the argument I choose and win it, the more evidence there is that I have not accomplished my goal as a professor and half the course is already gone. If some bright and capable students insisted that axis c), above, is the only really relevant axis, I would know right then that I would lose the argument. I'm entirely fine with that. It would also mean that I had taught them a crucially important skill in policy analysis and I'm fine with that, too.