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Decisions of War: The Challenge of Actually Governing |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 07 October 2009 |
Governing by polls and popularity regularly leads to failure and indecision due to the nature of information provided by polls which reflects how humans caliberate choices.
In the US a campaign is mostly binary. The electorate can choose between Candidate A or Candidate B. They have only two things to compare thus the caliberation is easy.
But once in office and setting forth proposals and policies, there are multiple options. There are many potential ways to go forward in Afghanistan.
The electorate looks at the current situation, the proposal and the many other possibilities. Each individual also has their individual idealized solution for their personal situation. Thus consensus is hard to reach.
In approval ratings polls, it becomes even more clear. The office holder is no longer compared to a singular or potential pair of opponents, he is compared to the preferences of respondent. The office holder is not compared to Candidate B, but to a preferred version of what that office holder could or should be.
Very rarely do office office holders match enough of the electorate's preferences to have a wide approval rating for the long haul.
Candidates and staffers who are very good at campaigns are very good at winning the binary comparision battle.
But governing is not a binary comparison.
Passing legislation and governing is easiest when the office holder does not try to win a binary against the many potential ideals, but by winning against the worst case scenario.
With the public growing weary of the protracted wars and the well known challenges of Afghanistan, the best option is not arguing in favor of the best possible outcome in Afghanistan, but how to prevent the worst possible scenario.
It is impossible to achieve a meaningful plurality on the best possible outcome in Afghanistan, but it is possible to reach a majority on how to prevent the worst case scenario.
The worst case being the Taliban controlling all of Afghanistan and as in 1990s, allowing it to be safe haven for various international terrorist groups and groups seeking to topple the Pakistani Government.
We all can agree on what that led to in the past.
Then the work of building a large plurality becomes easier.
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