Nature of politics and leadership
I have a question -- not an answer -- hopefully some people can share ideas as I'd like to see what people think can help.
Increasingly leadership of political parties has become more important and the type of leader you need to win more problematic.
Politics is not inclusive. It is easier for white middle-age men with specific speaking and communications skills who have financial resources to get the job. That is already a massive problem full of race, gender, income and age biases. Leaders often have to be somewhat pretty or have some desirable look.
To make matters worse the skills required to get the job and keep the job are very different than the skills required to do the job. We elect good politicians who make bad leaders and bad PMs and we shut out those who could do better.
It is true even in the employment world-- job seeking skills are not often the same as the skills to do the job.
What can we do to minimize the impact of this; to make it possible for more people and more inclusive political leadership?
Any thoughts on how we can do this? Can a party sell itself even if the leader is not as strong at mixing it up?
Now the only people who can become PM would be those who can win or at least hold their own in a fractious debate but are those really the best leaders? Who have we excluded?
I am not so much looking for more agreement that we live in a sexist, media-mad, racist society-- but exploring how can we improve the odds and make a difference and make more diversity possible in leadership is what I am after-- if it is possible.
The problem lies in looking to "the" leader to solve the problems and carry the party's message. There should be less emphasis on the individual leaders and more on a collectivity of leaders, a collection of motivated and capable people who each have their own expertises and abilities, and they should be given the opportunity to demonstrate their leadership qualities as a contribution to the overall promotion of the party and its programs.
Focusing on the personal characteristics and likeability of "the" leader has a depoliticizing effect on political discourse. Instead of talking about what policies and perspectives are going to advance the party's agenda, the focus - even among party activists - becomes more like hiring someone to fill a job.
Case in point: This thread, where babblers were lining up for and against possible successors to Layton based on things like "experience" and ability to speak French, with virtually no discussion about the political leanings of each candidate or the direction in which the party should be headed.
Leadership can't be discussed in a political vacuum. The "best leaders" are the ones who are prepared to move the party in the political direction set for it by its members.
Get the cameras out of the house of commons.
That way they can get down to business rather than spending their time cribbing for their daily amateur theatrical revue.
I think the reason people focus on the communications skills of the leaders is that they assume that the direction of the party is not set by the leader -- and in many respects it isn't. It is essentially a communications position or has become so.
I would like a party to do what you say and give multiple people areas in which to speak but in the end-- there is still a major roll for a leader in our political culture. Is it possible to undo that? Certainly we can't have 5 people show up for the election debate...
If the best leader is one to move the party in the direction set by members then their personal leanings are less relevant? Am I missing something or is there a bit of a contradiction between your last two paragraphs?
Certainly I prefer the style of a leader that allows for strong spokespeople in the party rather than one who decides everything and represents everything (like Harper).
At present because of the culture Turmel has a challenge-- if she comes out and speaks on everything then she is not the kind of leader I would hope for but if she allows individual MPs to speak out on different topics people will say she is a weak leader even if this is actually a strength.
We have a sick political culture worse than it used to be years ago and it had been bad a long, long time.
i think if we did what people are doing in central america right now we'd be better off.
There the people come up with a program they want and elect one of themselves to do it.
here, the people are told what they want by a group of people not of their own rank/class and asked to rubber stamp it by voting. i think this has a lot to do with people not being informed or being ill informed so they don't even know what they want or what should be done by those in office.
Not to mention, even when they do vote for someone, they don't even really know what they voted for and are often actually voting against their own stated interests. this is because politicians say things like "let's create jobs" or "i'm strong on the economy" but without defining it. it's all propaganda with no value.
instead, if people got together and devised a plan of specific things to do and elected one of themselves to do it we could actually have democracy. Also, with no accountability from the press and the people, when "leaders" go back on their word, there's no consequence. They can screw up and lie and screw their voters as much as they want because no one is watching.
I think the reason people focus on the communications skills of the leaders is that they assume that the direction of the party is not set by the leader -- and in many respects it isn't. It is essentially a communications position or has become so.
The best communications strategy is to have spokespeople who actually buy into the political positions they are tasked with putting forward. If the party were to decide, for example, to go in a direction of support for Quebec nationalism, you wouldn't want to have a leader who was personally at odds with that position. And if the party did choose such a leader, it would be a safe bet that party's public messaging would soon evolve more toward the leader's political preference. That's why, for example, it's so dangerous for the NDP to choose Thomas Mulcair, an unreformed Liberal, as its leader.
Leaders' debates are a big part of the problem. It's become a spectacle - a gladiatorial sporting event between rivals that invites people to cast their votes according to their personal likes and dislikes of the leaders. If people could see more than just the leader, they could, for example, compare and contrast the competence and talent of incumbent cabinet ministers to their potential replacements from the opposition. Throw out the leaders' debates and have a series of debates among leading party representatives.
No, their personal leanings are important, and should be measured according to how well they reflect the party's democratically decided direction. See my first comment above.
If it really is a strength, then the party should go with it. The voters will notice.
@milo: Well said!
It gets tough when the party has to stand for so many different positions to find a leader who backs them all up with personal beliefs, how to reconcile socialism, feminism, Quebec Nationalism, pacificism, environmentalism and gay rights positions.
Mostly I think the leadership importance is picked up from our idiot relatives to the South.
I fear it is also a side-effect of how politics is done rather than a choice. If I am right the solution is much more difficult. That is why I started this thread-- I think the entire way politics is done would have to change in order for their to be an alternative-- and this includes communications techniques and technology. A lot of this at first blush appears beyond the scope of one party and has to do with our declining democracy.
For better or worse, the leader both defines and anthropomorphizes the approach to electoral politics. Human beings identify with people more than words, and a story over a logical argument. Stories have heroes and villains, and it's been ever thus.
War and Peace had a long list of characters, and I had to print out the entire list of them from the Internet in order to watch the video, which we stopped and started constantly while I looked them up and their relationship to each other. That is more attention than you're going to get from people in this Twitter age, and having a few identifiable faces with known storylines who personify the issues can help to simplify the communications process.
It's probably always wise to build out from a single leader to a leadership team over the longer term, but I'm sensing we may have the perfect opportunity for that this fall anyway, what with Jack out of commission for a bit, and all the provincial elections.
For better or worse, the leader both defines and anthropomorphizes the approach to electoral politics. Human beings identify with people more than words, and a story over a logical argument. Stories have heroes and villains, and it's been ever thus.
If this is so, why do the opinion polls on popularity of the party leaders differ so greatly from the polls on party preference?
Clearly, most people are prepared to vote for the party that best represents their own political leanings, rather than the party that has the most appealing and articulate leader.
For better or worse, the leader both defines and anthropomorphizes the approach to electoral politics. Human beings identify with people more than words, and a story over a logical argument. Stories have heroes and villains, and it's been ever thus.
If this is so, why do the opinion polls on popularity of the party leaders differ so greatly from the polls on party preference?
Clearly, most people are prepared to vote for the party that best represents their own political leanings, rather than the party that has the most appealing and articulate leader.
Not entirely, at least not until recently. Many people restricted their choice to a party or candidate that they felt had a chance to win, which in some parts of Canada until recently didn't include the NDP.
I'd have to agree with Policy Wonk. If we learned anything from the last election, it's that leaders' ratings are leading indicators, and party support a trailing indicator.
True enough-- another indicator is the growth potential measured by second choices and the parties one would never vote for. We have seen for a few years the ceiling of NDP support potential going up.
I'd have to agree with Policy Wonk. If we learned anything from the last election, it's that leaders' ratings are leading indicators, and party support a trailing indicator.
Well, Layton was the most popular leader, but Harper's party won the majority, just as the polls had predicted.
So I don't know what your point is.
Well, it's not the only factor in vote selection, M. Spector. But dislike of Ignatieff certainly got a lot of former Liberal voters looking elsewhere seriously, and given Layton was a known and liked alternative, it helped people to overcome some of the media's BS.
Well, political campaigns are defined and shaped by the main stream media, still. So, you have to play to that game, or invent an entirely new game.
In reality, you have to play both games.
The current issue with Turmel isn't about her past memberships or activities. If it wasn't that issue, they would have fabricated some other issue to run and smear with.
What has to be done is to be constantly discrediting not just the particulars, but the smear system itself. It's why I've been rambling on about Evan Solomon's P.R. company Infomercial, "Power and Politics". And why I keep track of what P.R. companies are active in the issues I'm interested in.
A growing number of media consumers is aware of this power vector and more has to be done to spread awareness. The influence of the main stream media will be less the more people are aware of its baseline corruption.
Meanwhile, inventing a new game I leave for smarter folk than I.
The best thing to do with Evan and other MSM shows like his is to ignore them. Don't tune in because all it does is boost his ratings. If no one watches he will not have a show. The progressive people who tune in are merely feeding the beast.
Just tuning in doesn't boost his ratings.
And we should be aware of just what is being done and by whom.
Now, if you want to strike a blow agaisnt this kind of media, then the way to do that is to get just a few hundred people, maybe a couple of thousand, to write to selected advertisers and tell them that you don't like them supporting such crass manipulation and that you're going to express that disspleasure by not buying their products or services.
The best thing to do with Evan and other MSM shows like his is to ignore them. Don't tune in because all it does is boost his ratings. If no one watches he will not have a show. The progressive people who tune in are merely feeding the beast.
How does that work? Are they spying on us through our TV sets?
Now, if you want to strike a blow agaisnt this kind of media, then the way to do that is to get just a few hundred people, maybe a couple of thousand, to write to selected advertisers and tell them that you don't like them supporting such crass manipulation and that you're going to express that disspleasure by not buying their products or services.
That doesn't work, unless you believe that corporate advertisers are going to go to the CBC and complain that the show is too right wing.
These corporations know that political comment shows are inherently controversial, and they still buy ad time on them anyway. Moreover, they are well accustomed to getting hundreds of letters every day from people complaining about the politics of the shows they sponsor - most of the letters are from right-wing cranks who think everyone to the left of Genghis Khan is a communist. And they have staff who do nothing but "handle" these complaints.
Consumer democracy is a myth. The sooner we discard it the better.
Sorry I didn't know they had stopped using audience share ratings. How do they make claims like the ones about the Stanley Cup? Please enlighten me since I thought they used technology to make claims about audience size. I guess they just make them up and can't really gauge how many people are watching their shows. I thought audience share was one of the main things sold to advertisers but I am apparently dead wrong.
Figures released this afternoon show CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada shattered its own record set two nights earlier in the 2011 Stanley Cup final, drawing an average audience of 8.76 million viewers to the game 7 telecast.
That makes the game the most-watched NHL game in Hockey Night in Canadahistory and the second-highest watched game in CBC sports history finishing slightly behind the 2002 Men’s Olympic Gold Medal game between Canada and the U.S., which drew 8.96 million viewers. The game 6 audience for the Canucks and Bruins attracted an average of 6.6 million viewers.
Canadian law around politics requires parties to elect their "leader" directly. The idea, raised in this thread, about collective leadership therefore takes place in the circumstance where it is undermined by the very (bourgeois) laws we have.
Case in point. The old Communist Party, believers in collective leadership, would elect a Central Committee from which an Executive and "leader" would be elected. That Executive and leader could be replaced by other members of the CC. However, Canadian law required them to elect a leader directly from the entire membership. So they went through the fake exercise, imposed on them by Canadian law, of "electing" a leader.
Other organizations (feminist, etc) that share the same values as the CP probably would have to carry out the same procedure if they were running for public office.
Anway, if you want to play the bullshit game of electoral poltics then you have to abide by their rules. And there are plenty of such rules. These rules turn your organization into a bourgeoies political machine if you don't watch out, and there's not much you can do about it.
Collective leadership is one left principles that is undermined by the system we have. The right to recall is another. The latter isn't even practiced. And therefore we have a system which is designed in such a way that political parties have no consequences for lying to the electorate about what their aims are. Of course smart asses might say that such parties can get turfed from office .... NEXT time. lol. The damage, of course, is already done and the system is preserved.
However, Canadian law required them to elect a leader directly from the entire membership.
So Canadian law required them to actually implement a more democratic selection process than they already had?
Canadian law certainly doesn't (if it ever did) require federal political parties to have their leaders elected "at large" by the membership.
As for the right of recall, that rests by definition with the people who elected the leader in the first place. They are free to replace the leader any time they want.
Meh. What I typed was badly worded but the meaning should be clear enough. if you want to be a registered political party in Canada then you have to have a leadership convention "based" on the membership and the idea of electing a collective leadership is ALIEN to such a system. The popularity contest is compulsory.
Could you provide a cite to the law that both says a political party has to have a leader and how they are elected. The Elections Act has a lot on reporting expenses etc in a leadership campaign but I can see nothing that says a party has to have a leader. As well I see nothing in the Act that sets out how a leader is elected except again how the money flows and is accounted for.
I am interested in knowing what law you are referring to since I am unaware of that legal requirement.
It gets tough when the party has to stand for so many different positions to find a leader who backs them all up with personal beliefs, how to reconcile socialism, feminism, Quebec Nationalism, pacificism, environmentalism and gay rights positions.
Mostly I think the leadership importance is picked up from our idiot relatives to the South.
I don't think we can blame Americans for this. As we've seen so vividly in recent weeks, there is no agenda-setting portion of the American government that can be guaranteed to get its way in policy and especially no defined small set of individuals that controls the budget. This is completely different in Canada where under the firm leadership of the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, Department of Finance and Treasury Board Secretariat control the money and so effectively control the government. All the more so in a situation of majority government where Parliamentary supervision is perfunctory and approval automatic. That makes the Prime Minister pretty critical even before we go on to consider the effect of Presidential-style campaigning borrowed from the US.
Meh. What I typed was badly worded but the meaning should be clear enough. if you want to be a registered political party in Canada then you have to have a leadership convention "based" on the membership and the idea of electing a collective leadership is ALIEN to such a system. The popularity contest is compulsory.
I don't see why a leadership convention "based" on the membership couldn't elect a collective leadership, and designate one of those persons as "the" leader for purposes of fitting into the system. There's nothing to stop a political party from having a functional collective leadership with a designated leader at the helm. In fact, the CP has always operated that way, regardless of what the law says.
Northern Shoveler - I've got that question pending w/ Elections Canada and we'll see what they say. At one time I knew.
Spector - If a political party wanted a genuinely collective leadership (handy, for example, when your organization is illegal/about to be made illegal and the state is harrassing and/or arresting your leadership) and insisted upon it then they would not meet the requirements of election financing and, therefore, could not put the name of their organization on the ballot, get whatever funding is available, etc.
You're right about the CP. AFAIK, that's exactly what they do and still do.
The Elections Act does require that riding associations must have officers with defined duties. That of course is not how a collective should work. But seems to me an electoral collective in a FPTP system is strange. You can only run one candidate in a riding and that candiadte must have a financial agent and that leaves little room for a collective. How a caucus operates is not defined in law, as far as I know, so if a party elected a number of members I think they could structure themselves in any manner they see fit.
Tommy i have also raised alarm bells about Soloman and his lack of skill at anything but shutting up when the cons want to speak. Oh sure the odd time this nitwit may attack them, but its usually just so they can spew some talking points, and he rarely refutes facts that are commonly known as false. DO YOUR JOB and casll them out as liars on TV. Like the 80 million that clement stole for border infrastructure. There is no where to go from here, no where, yet he let them squirm and lie and make excuses for the unexcusable. Its a "minor" issue but calls into question the character of the people doing the lying.
I should add that the NDP should also call them out as liars, whihc mulcair does when he is on. While some may not like him, the fact he stands up for himself on the shows makes me like him. He shows what liars these BS artists and the hosts are. Why do you think you see him so rare;y on P&P now.
Quebec solidaire had that problem, with two leaders. They simply designated the party president as the leader for the purposes of the Elections Act.
Would a party with a collective leadership stand an electoral chance?
Could you provide a cite to the law that both says a political party has to have a leader and how they are elected. The Elections Act has a lot on reporting expenses etc in a leadership campaign but I can see nothing that says a party has to have a leader. As well I see nothing in the Act that sets out how a leader is elected except again how the money flows and is accounted for.
I am interested in knowing what law you are referring to since I am unaware of that legal requirement.
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&dir=pol/bck&document=in...
There is nothing stating how a leader is selected, just (presumably) that some sort of resolution confirms whatever process is used.
Perhaps less on institutional change and more in communications should be attempted-- can the party play up the team without people calling that weak leadership?
I find the party still looks like a cult of personality like other parties and am questioning if this is avoidable-- perhaps it isn't -- I just don't know. Right now we could be forgiven for doing this so we should see if it can work now.
Could you provide a cite to the law that both says a political party has to have a leader and how they are elected. The Elections Act has a lot on reporting expenses etc in a leadership campaign but I can see nothing that says a party has to have a leader. As well I see nothing in the Act that sets out how a leader is elected except again how the money flows and is accounted for.
I am interested in knowing what law you are referring to since I am unaware of that legal requirement.
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=pol&dir=pol/bck&document=in...
There is nothing stating how a leader is selected, just (presumably) that some sort of resolution confirms whatever process is used.
Thx It is embedded in what officers a party must have. I think that you can change your leader as often as you want as long as there is a proper motion. So a party could likely have a rotating leadership but there would be a lot of paper work to send in to Elections Canada with every rotation.
The Elections Act does require that riding associations must have officers with defined duties. That of course is not how a collective should work.
There's nothing unusual about a collective having officers with defined duties, which they carry out in a manner discussed and directed by the collective from time to time.
Elections Canada informed me that Division 3.1 of the Canada Election Act regulates leadership contests. As near as I can make out, this section only has to do with financial and financial audit (i.e., financial admin) aspects of leadership contests. They also say, "The regulations on how a party leader is selected are internal to the political party. You will need to contact the party or parties for more information."
So whatever the law once was, it doesn't seem to be that way anymore.
Of course, the law TOGETHER WITH the "regulations" and how the whole thing is enforced or interpreted by the government officials can vary a lot from what is on paper. For example, there were never official "pass laws" in Canada against First Nation Peoples but, in fact, such brutal apartheid rules were enforced for decades in Canada ... whether they were "legal" or not.
The Elections Canada Public Inquiry Unit also suggests calling them at 1 800 463‑6868, toll‑free in Canada and the United States during regular (9-5 EST) business hours.
They were both legal and immoral. Yes indeed FN's people were subject to "pass laws" if you mean they needed permission to leave their reserves and if they didn't get it they could be arrested.
Thus, First Nations people in Western Canada, who were already faced with starvation, prior to signing of the Treaties, were forced onto reserves where the Federal Government of Canada proceeded to use the Indian Act to control every aspect of life for a First Nation person (Getty & Lussier, 1983; Opekokew, 1980; Titley, 1986; Tobias, 1976). Furthermore, the Federal Government of Canada, with the use of the Indian Act, proceeded to outlaw the following:
To ensure that the above-mentioned policies were followed, any First Nation person that refused to adhere to the decision of the Indian agent could be sent to jail without a court hearing (Getty & Lussier, 1983; Leslie, 1978; Opekokew, 1980). The following quotes verify what has just been cited … the Indian reserves set aside under treaty were operated more along the lines of confinement camps to protect the surrounding private-interests (Getty & Lussier, 1983:xvi). The freedom that First Nation people had enjoyed for centuries in the area now known as Western Canada had come to an end and they were reduced to prisoners on the reserves, the Indians were entirely at the mercy of the government (Opekokew, 1980:31).
http://eculture.pagc.sk.ca/eculture.php?pid=Overview&tp=slnk&language=&ver=
You quote Purich (1986) as I was when I made my comments above. Purich's book outlines how this worked; at one point the RCMP to their credit even told the Minister that they could not enforce an illegal law.
You might be interested to know that I had a very ugly debate/fight right here on babble with (former) babbler J. House on what were effectively pass laws in Canada. I used Purich as my reference. J. House, having apparently had a very conventional legal education, told me in no uncertain terms that there never were such laws, blah blah. Smug bastard that I am, I really enjoyed setting him straight. heh.
..i offer this up as an alternet view on leadership that i believe is out there yet rarely talked about.
Swarmwise: What Is A Swarm?A Swarm is a new kind of organization, made possible by available and affordable mass communication. Where it used to take hundreds of full-time employees to organize 100,000 people, today that can be done — and is done — by somebody in their spare time from their kitchen.
There are many misconceptions about what a Swarm is. Let’s begin by dispelling what it is not.
It is not an amorphous cloud of equals, where nobody gets any decision power. While this would be an ideal society to some, it is not a Swarm.
Neither is it a traditional hierarchical organization where commands are issued top-down and people are expected to follow them. A Swarm may look like this from the outside, but that’s not what it is.
Rather, it is a scaffolding set up by a few individuals that enable tens of thousands of people to cooperate on a common goal in their life. These tens of thousands are usually vastly diverse and come from all walks of life, but share one common goal. The scaffolding set up by one or a few individuals allow these thousands of people to form a Swarm around it and start changing the world together....
http://falkvinge.net/2011/08/01/swarmwise-what-is-a-swarm/?
..so as we struggle to end the current wars. and as we struggle to save our planet's environment. and where we struggle to stave off the onslaught we face from capital robbing us of everything we have built, fought for and hold in common. the ndp can be a scaffolding.