FREE ESSAY ON GROUP POLARIZATION AND COMPETITION

GROUP POLARIZATION AND COMPETITION

Group Polarization and Competition
in Political Behavior
On Tuesday, November 14, 1995, in what has been perceived as the years biggest non-event,
the federal government shut down all non-essential services due to what was, for all
intents and purposes, a game of national chicken between the House Speaker and the
President. And, at an estimated cost of 200 million dollars a day, this dubious battle of
dueling egos did not come cheap (Bradsher, 1995, p.16). Why do politicians find it almost
congenitally impossible to cooperate? What is it about politics and power that seem to
always put them at odds with good government? Indeed, is an effective, well run
government even possible given the current adversarial relationship between our two main
political parties? It would seem that the exercise of power for its own sake, and a
competitive situation in which one side must always oppose the other on any issue, is
incompatible with the cooperation and compromise necessary for the government to
function. As the United States becomes more extreme in its beliefs in general, group
polarization and competition, which requires a mutual exclusivity of goal attainment,
will lead to more showdown situations in which the goal of good government gives way to
political posturing and power-mongering.
In this paper I will analyze recent political behavior in terms of two factors: Group
behavior with an emphasis on polarization, and competition. However, one should keep in
mind that these two factors are interrelated. Group polarization tends to exacerbate
inter-group competition by driving any two groups who initially disagree farther apart in
their respective views. In turn, a competitive situation in which one side must lose in
order for the other to win (and political situations are nearly always competitive), will
codify the differences between groups - leading to further extremism by those seeking
power within the group - and thus, to further group polarization.
In the above example, the two main combatants, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, were
virtually forced to take uncompromising, disparate views because of the very nature of
authority within their respective political groups. Group polarization refers to the
tendency of groups to gravitate to the extreme of whatever opinion the group shares
(Baron & Graziano, 1991, p.498-499). Therefore, if the extreme is seen as a desirable
characteristic, individuals who exhibit extreme beliefs will gain authority through
referent power. In other words, they will have characteristics that other group members
admire and seek to emulate (p. 434). Unfortunately, this circle of polarization and
authority can lead to a bizarre form of one upsmanship in which each group member seeks
to gain power and approval by being more extreme than the others. The end result is
extremism in the pursuit of authority without any regard to the practicality or
reasonableness of the beliefs in question. Since the direction of polarization is
currently in opposite directions in our two party system, it is almost impossible to find
a common ground between them. In addition, the competitive nature of the two party system
many times eliminates even the possibility of compromise since failure usually leads to a
devastating loss of power.
If both victory and extremism are necessary to retain power within the group, and if, as
Alfie Kohn (1986) stated in his book No Contest: The Case Against Competition,
competition is mutually exclusive goal attainment (one side must lose in order for the
other to win), then compromise and cooperation are impossible (p. 136). This is
especially so if the opponents are dedicated to retaining power at all costs. That power
is an end in itself is made clear by the recent shutdown of the government. It served no
logical purpose. Beyond costing a lot of money, it had no discernible effect except as a
power struggle between two political heavyweights. According to David Kipnis (1976, cited
in Baron & Graziano, 1991), one of the negative effects of power is, in fact, the
tendency to regard it as its own end, and to ignore the possibility of disastrous results
from the reckless use of power (p. 433). Therefore, it would seem that (at least in this
case) government policy is created and implemented, not with regard to its effectiveness
as government policy, but only with regard to its value as a tool for accumulating and
maintaining power.
Another of Kipnis's negative effects of power is the tendency to use it for selfish
purposes (p.433). In politics this can be seen as the predilection towards making
statements for short term political gain that are either nonsensical or contradictory to
past positions held by the candidates themselves. While this may not be the use of actual
power, it is an attempt to gain political office (and therefore power) without regard for
the real worth or implications of a policy for good government.
A prime example of this behavior can be seen in the widely divergent political stances
taken by Governor Pete Wilson of California. At this point I should qualify my own
political position. While I do tend to lean towards the Democratic side of the political
spectrum (this is undoubtedly what brought Pete Wilson to my attention in the first
place), I examine Governor Wilson because he is such a prime example of both polarization
and pandering in the competitive pursuit of power. Accordingly, I will try to hold my
political biases in check.
In any case, selfish, power seeking behavior is reflected in Wilson's recently abandoned
campaign for President. Although he consistently ruled out running for President during
his second gubernatorial campaign, immediately after he was re-elected he announced that
he was forming a committee to explore the possibility. And, in fact, he did make an
abortive run for the Republican nomination. In both cases (presidential and gubernatorial
elections), he justified his seemingly contradictory positions in terms of his duty to
the people(No Author 1995). This begs the question; was it the duty that was
contradictory, or was it Wilson's political aspirations. In either case it seems clear
that his decision was hardly based on principles of good government. Even if Wilson
thought he had a greater duty to the nation as a whole (and I'm being charitable here),
he might have considered that before he ran for governor a second time. It would appear
much more likely that the greater power inherent in the presidency was the determining
force behind Wilson's decision. Ironically, Wilson's lust for potential power may cause
him to lose the power he actually has. Since his decision to run for President was
resoundingly unpopular with Californians, and since he may be perceived as unable to
compete in national politics due to his withdrawal from the presidential race, his
political power may be fatally impaired. This behavior shows not only a disregard for
good government, but also a strange inability to defer gratification. There is no reason
that Pete Wilson couldn't have run for President after his second term as Governor had
expired. His selfish pursuit of power for its own sake was so absolute that it inhibited
him from seeing the very political realities that gave him power in the first place.
In his attempt to gain power, Wilson managed to change his stance on virtually every
issue he had ever encountered. From immigration to affirmative action - from tax cuts to
abortion rights, he has swung 180 degrees (Thurm, 1995). The point here is not his
inconsistency, but rather the fact that it is improbable that considerations of effective
government would allow these kinds of swings. And, while people may dismiss this behavior
as merely the political game playing that all candidates engage in, it is the
pervasiveness of this behavior - to the exclusion of any governmental considerations -
that make it distressing as well as intriguing.
Polarization is also apparent in this example. Since Pete Wilson showed no inherent
loyalty toward a particular ideology, it is entirely likely that had the Republican party
been drifting towards a centrist position rather than an extreme right-wing position,
Wilson would have accordingly been more moderate 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, difficult to tell to what extent political intransigence is a
conscious strategy, or an unconscious motivation toward power, but the end result is the
same - political leadership that is not conducive (or even relevant) to good government.
The role of competition in our political system is an inherently contradictory one. We
accept the fact that politicians must compete ruthlessly to gain office using whatever
tactics are necessary to win. We then, somehow, expect them to completely change their
behavior once they are elected.
At that point we expect cooperation, compromise, and a statesmanlike 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 automatically adopt in order to win (p.139). In other words, the very nature
of competition requires that we treat people as hostile objects rather than as human
beings. It is, therefore, unlikely, once an election is over and the process of
government is supposed to begin, that politicians will be able to forgive and forget in
order to carry on with the business at hand.
Once again, in the recent government shutdown we can see this same sort of difficulty.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose competitive political relationship with Bill Clinton
has been rancorous at best, blamed his own (Gingrich's) handling of the budget
negotiations that resulted in the shutdown, on his poor treatment during an airplane
flight that he and the President were on (Turque & Thomas, 1995, p. 28). One can look at
this issue from both sides. On the one hand, shabby treatment on an airplane flight is
hardly a reason 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 light of the delicate
negotiations that were going on at the time? In both cases, it seems that all concerned
were, in effect, blinded by their competitive hostility. They both presumably desired to
run the government well (we assume that's why they ran for office in the first place),
but they couldn't overcome their hostility long enough to run it at all. If the Speaker
is to be believed (although he has since tried to retract his statements), the entire
episode resulted not from a legitimate disagreement about how to govern well, but from
the competitive desire to dominate government. Indeed, when one examines the eventual
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
shutting down the government and then starting it up again a few days later? What's more,
this entire useless episode will be reenacted in mid-December. One can only hope that
Clinton and Gingrich avoid traveling together until an agreement is reached.
Although people incessantly complain about government and about 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, PAC reform, and the peddling
of influence, we never seem to realize that, most of the time, politicians are merely
giving us what they think we want. If they are weak and dominated by polls, aren't they
really trying to find out the will of the people in order to comply with it? If they are
extremist and uncompromising in their political stances, aren't they simply reflecting
the extremism prevalent in our country today? If politicians compromise, we call them
weak, and if they don't we call them extremist. If we are unhappy with our government,
perhaps 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 yet be 100 percent 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 say that
competition is human nature, or perhaps think that these behaviors are essentially
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 didn't want to be
remembered as the first American President to lose a war. If this is true, it means that
thousands of people, both American and Vietnamese, died in order to protect one man's
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 apparently trying to turn frustration with the federal
government into open revolution.
I do not think these examples are aberrations or flukes, but are, instead, indicative of
structural 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). Country may be losing money with
government closed. The New YorkTimes, 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 entering race. San
Jose Mercury News Online. Address:http://www.sjmercury.com/wilson/wil324s.htm
Thurm, S. (1995, August 29). [internet] Wilson's 'announcement' moreof an ad: California
governor kicks off drivefor 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.