Comments on: Ideas and interests

By: chris borthwick

chris borthwick — Tue, 09 Mar 2004 03:25:17 +0000

One aspect of the way the world works seems to me to have been very much underplayed in political science and management theory. Let us imagine you are in a position of power. A proposal comes to your desk. One of the options is obviously sensible, is supported by the data, and comes with the recommendation of your experts. One is less satisfactory. One is plainly an almost total wipeout. What do you do? If you do the sensible thing, you are doing what anyone could do. You don’t need power for that. If you want to demonstrate to others that you have power, you have to take a decision that nobody in their right mind would take and push it through against unanimous opposition. This is in some ways in line with the present trend in evolutionary biology, which explains survival handicaps such as the peacock’s tail by hypothesizing that it is a way of demonstrating to potential mates or rivals that you have such potency that you can cope successfully with enormous self-imposed handicaps. At some point this comes up against the imperatives of simple survival, but if you are Stalin or a top manager in a large corporation you have a very wide range of action before you reach this boundary. If accepted, this theory explains quite a lot—perhaps too much, in fact; as in evolutionary biology, it means that any decision, good or bad, can be accounted for under one arm of the theory, making it virtually irrefutable and in Popperian terms trivial.

By: toni wuersch

toni wuersch — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 06:09:35 +0000

The language of “interest” to me mixes up two groups: the group who benefited from a policy when it was applied; and the group on whose behalf a policy was approved before it was applied. Ruth Garrett Millikan covers “interest” (she calls it “function”, as do sociologists such as Parsons or Luhmann) in her book “Language, Thought and other Biological Categories.” Millikan says one should find the “normal function” of a capability in the reason that capability is reproduced, not by looking at past cases of use to “refute” claims. For instance, the normal function of a screwdriver is to tighten or loosen screws, even if a screwdriver was once drafted into service as a door jamb when nothing better was around. “interest served” by a policy corresponds to Millikan’s notion of “reproductive motive” or “normal function”, but the “interest who benefited” from a policy application is not always related to “interest served”. I’m assuming the cynical definition of policy as a scam on its beneficiaries isn’t taken as a driving reason to set it.

By: lesley

lesley — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 05:40:25 +0000

I know little of economic theories. But policy experience tells me that in a practical sense the answer is various formulations, and relative strengths and interconnectedness, of all the above. Ideology can play a role in binding otherwise contentious parties, or forcing apart erstwhile fellows. Public interest—and yes, for all the cynicism, policy-makers, most of whom genuinely are trying to do the best they can for the public, with limited information, time and resources, do consider the general public good as best they are able—can sometimes be the overwhelming consideration. Private interests naturally may influence structure, process and decision—that’s often as much to do with decision-makers drawing on locally available information under pressure of time and politics as much as anything. I prefer to think of it as spheres of influence intersecting on specific issues at specific times, with specific players and specific sets of information available. The delineation between ideology, public and private interests I find too simplistic for the complexity of the process. Then, too, ‘the public good’, like ‘the national interest’, is a changeable beast. Policy adapts to society adapts to policy, whether driven by private or public interests. Having said that, there probably is a tipping point . where overwhelming attention to private interests degrades the public good—Saddam’s Iraq comes to mind, . where overmuch attention to a consensual perception of the ‘public good’ undermines the ability of a society to move forward and react quickly to environmental change, . where ideology, divorced from reality, simply ignores both internal and external environment, public and private interests.

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 00:59:32 +0000

This may be already assumed in your 3 alternatives, but, as a fourth consideration, are there not real structural constraints, pressures and crises that drive the salience of policy questions, such that proposals ultimately have to be balanced out to be efficacious, or they risk worsening any problems that may purport to be “solved” and exacerbate and ramify the structural dilemmas? So policies that are either too narrowly sectoral in subordinating particular to general interests or simply ineffective in getting at the roots or sources of a perceived problem- (perhaps out of an interest in evasion)- will result in policy failures and it would be dealings with the consequences of policy failures that drives the alteration of policy conception frameworks.

By: Stentor

Stentor — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 18:43:22 +0000

I would think that the role of ideas is to mediate between the structural reality of interest groups and the normative appeal of the public interest. Pretty much any interest group will tell you that the policy they’re pushing is best for society as a whole. And their opponents will try to attack them as promoting a private sectional interest—saying that their ideas’ promotion of a private interest is for that reason invalid. The goal of democracy is to even out the playing field and eliminate non-discursive means of influencing policy, so that in order for private interests to get their way they have to sell themselves as conducive to the public interest.

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 17:07:35 +0000

The nicest overview of this question I’ve seen is Peter A. Hall. 1997. The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of the Industrialized Nations. In “Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure,” edited by Mark I. Lichbach, and Alan S. Zuckerman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Peter’s earlier book, “The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations,” Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987 is obviously a little old at this stage, but also has some good stuff.

By: Ssuma

Ssuma — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:08:31 +0000

I like this formulation but what are you planning to do with it? At the end you seem to be trying to figure out the circumstances that would lead to pure public interest-based politics or pure private interest-based politics. That is not a discussion which particularly interests me. (Of course mine is just a private interest, and maybe not even your private interest) You suggest that if Keynes is entirely right it is one and if Marx is entirely right it is the other but I think neither of them is entirely right. I am interested in how ideology mediates between public and private interests to create the political world we actually see. How can this 3-part division of yours be used to explain an actual case? I think a more practical take would be of greater public interest. Is that the direction you want to go? I for one like the less theoretical direction. Also, since this seem like a good a simple idea I assume that someone has tried something like this before and there is a whole literature on it.

By: Skip

Skip — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 12:47:29 +0000

My view of the interest group theory is that it helps explain the failure of the first theory, on an unfortunately large set of policies. But I don’t think it refutes the public interest theory so much as it demarks its limitations.

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 11:31:47 +0000

Those who lean towards Popper argue that a strongly Kuhnian view cannot explain the real-world success of science. . . . http://www.sfu.ca/~boland/wien02.pdf might interest you.

By: sennoma

sennoma — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 08:56:03 +0000

That last paragraph is eerily reminiscent of Popper-vs-Kuhn discussions of how science works. It even seems to lend itself to a similar pragmatic bottom line. Those who lean towards Popper argue that a strongly Kuhnian view cannot explain the real-world success of science. Likewise, perhaps if one can argue that policy changes have created an overall increase in social good, one can infer that public interest theory has the edge?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Sun, 07 Mar 2004 08:55:42 +0000

If California’s most recent election results are any indication, ideology is made to measure by the group with the wherewithal to produce and air the most television commercials. It’s clear that taxes are toxic and not to be countenanced under any circumstances. What is not clear is that the public interest was any part of that consideration.