Over the next few weeks there will be a lot of coverage of the American Presidential Primaries. To set the scene for what will be a fascinating contest I would recommend you read what was arguably the most interesting political book of 2007 - The Political Brain.
Whilst it is about American politics and written by a Democrat strategist in response to the two presidential election victories by George Bush, it has many insights relevant not just to the UK but for any democracy.
Its an investigation into the role of emotion in determining election results and rejects the dispassionate assumptions of how voters cast their vote held by cognitive psychologists, political scientists, economists and campaign strategists.
It argues that people simply don't vote through simple self interest or weighing up the issues - when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins.
Before looking at the implications for UK politics, it is only proper to look at where the UK differs to the United States.
Much of the book is specifically applicable to the culture wars in the US: abortion, gay rights, church state separation, guns etc which has less salience in the UK. It could be argued that the UK (and the rest of the European Union and Canada) is predominantly "Blue State" and the political debate is in many ways carried out within blue state norms. The nearest approximation to "Red States" we do have in the UK are perhaps some of the views argued by some who support The Countryside Alliance, however this is nowhere is as strong as the 60 million plus in the US rural areas which due to the large number of small mid-western states are disproportionately over represented in the US electoral college. In addition the US religious right comprises perhaps 20% of voters and there is no similar-sized equivalent in the UK.
However that is not to say there are not culture wars in the UK. It could be argued that a political view based around opposition to: political correctness, migration, impositions on motorists, any tax on inheritance etc is the UK cultural equivalent. Nevertheless it is clear that they are a broadly secular set of issues compared to the values held by many on the right in the US.
The book is unforgiving at the inability of the Democrats to put across a credible alternative narrative and pays tribute to the coordinated effort the Republicans have put into this.
I think the Democrats suffer from the fact that unlike the Labour Party in the UK they did not have the equivalents of Labour's 1994 Clause 4 moment. Labour were fortunate in being able, during a period of serious Conservative Party weakness, to clearly set out where they stood in terms of values and principles. Unlike the Democrats, Labour were able, through the entire 1994-2005 period, to consistently neutralise the tax, crime/security issues with tough policies and through being seen to reject the views of certain interest groups in these areas.
However there are now new challenges. The public, having previously supported extra investment in public services, are now less clear as to whether they get enough value for money for what they pay in taxes. Immigration is also a much stronger issue than before. It will be interesting to see whether a new narrative emerges that seeks to show how the public sector is changing to meet personal needs as well as making the case for the economic benefits of immigration whilst reassuring the emotions of those who feel threatened by it. TCC have worked with public sector bodies on community cohesion and recognise this is a sensitive and challenging area, however there are some emerging themes that are perhaps best covered in another blog posting in the future.
The Conservatives in the UK have over the last 13 years faced the sort of problems that Democrats have faced since 1980. Having lost their defining economic competence tag on Black Wednesday in 1992 they have not been able to reassert a new narrative which is why the UK public when asked still say they are not yet clear what the Conservatives stand for. That point was also made by Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer newspaper this week. Whilst Labour's 1994-2007 narrative of modernisation is perhaps weakened as a result of global trends, it still exists and the Tories have not come up with anything compelling to replace it.
What is fascinating is how for a period the Democrats got it right by stressing the need to modernise, to reform public services like welfare and to be seen on the side of hard working families. Clinton's victory in 1992 was looked at in awe by many political strategists in the UK who sought to learn the lessons. Who now remembers the debate over the Clintonisation of the Labour Party in early 1993? The irony is that Labour learned from Clinton in 1992 and still applies it whilst the Democrats under Gore and Kerry seemed to forget the lessons of 1992. Labour seemed to learn the skills so well it was able to sustain them through the shift to a post 9/11 security agenda. The Democrats did not build on the Clinton era and fell back - also showing what being in opposition does to you! Indeed Gore's campaign was perceived as ignoring or repudiating the administration he was a member of! It will be interesting to see what lessons Gordon Brown draws from Gore's 2000 campaign.
In the UK the centre ground consensus now seems to be much larger than it currently is in the US. UK political narrative development needs to create compelling stories that appeal to the conflicting mental networks that compete in that crowded centreground.
When I was first studying politics I was always told how much there was cross-party voting in the US congress and party allegiance were weak. Nowadays there seems to be more political consensus in the UK with the decline of debates over economic ownership. In the US a mix of culture wars as well as the interesting way US House of Representatives seat boundaries are apportioned seems to have reduced the centre ground. In addition our political news media is predominately "beltway" with a much broader secular and centrist economic and social liberal consensus compared to the situation in the US with its vast shock-jock Talk Radio network. These differences seem to have been to the Democrats disadvantage. I have no doubt a bigger centre ground consensus would probably benefit them as the New Deal consensus did from 1932-1980.
Martin Kettle wrote in the Guardian last week as to how American exceptionalism in its politics compared to Europe continues even so far as to be a reversal of previous perceptions.
Where the Political Brain is very relevant to the UK is over its general points about developing narratives - the book Don't think of an Elephant is also good for this - and specifics such as Tax and security (crime, terrorism, immigration) issues. It can also be applied to other issues not covered in so much detail in the book. A good starting point is to examine how the narrative in the UK has changed over the last 50 years over Inheritance Tax - from Death Duties to Death Tax! In some way its mirrors how the debate over right to buy rose up the political agenda in the 70's-80's. People's views over taxation may be changing and this could be the key challenge for politicians of all parties in the run-up to the likely 2009/10 General Election.
Comments