Who are the politicians?

[Viking]

Well?

I'm musing about this now mainly since Norwegian parliamentary elections are coming up on September 14. (note the Norway voting thread). Well basically my gripe is that Norwegian politicians tend to be career politicians. It seems that the career of the normal Norwegian politician is to join a party youth organisation and if you get into the youth org leadership you drop out of university and go into politics. Barely half of the present parliament has even had a real job. The present Prime Minister has only ever worked for the party or the government, to be completely honest the opposition is in the same state.

This seems to be a symptom of centralized states with strong political parties. I see the lack of life experience as a problem, but then again the two clear cases (V. Normann and K. Clemet) of clear outside experience ended up with political problems.

[Martinus]

The Economist actually had an editorial on this very topic this weekend:

Monsieur health secretary
Aug 27th 2009
From The Economist print edition

The problem of Britain's shallow political talent pool, and how to fix it

Illustration by Steve O'Brien

THE umpires were short-sighted; the pitch was dodgy; and anyway, said some disgruntled Australians, three of the English cricketers who defeated their men in the deciding match of this summer's Test series were born in South Africa. English fans however, weren't too troubled by the moans. Their lot had won.

These days, when the English football team is playing and the camera pans to the coaches' bench, it has a distinctly Mediterranean hue. The manager has the kind of luxuriant hair, media/intellectual square-rimmed glasses, olive skin and self-control not usually associated with English coaches. The team's last bid to reach a big tournament, overseen by a native known as "the wally with a brolly", ended in humiliation. Under the current boss, Fabio Capello, it is romping towards next year's World Cup.

It isn't only in sport. The boards of Britain's big companies routinely look beyond the country's shores, and the firms' own payrolls, for the best people to run them. Bagehot is wondering: if England's football team can be trained by an Italian, why shouldn't the health service be managed by a Frenchman? Or, to put it less facetiously, why does politics, the business of running the country, draw on so much shallower a recruitment pool than most other important enterprises in Britain? It isn't just that foreigners are discounted; so, mostly, is everyone who doesn't happen to be an MP. It is time for leaders to bury their caste loyalty and anachronistic niceties and buy more talent in.

Making up the numbers
Ministerial talent is easy to identify but harder to define. It involves sound administration, policymaking flair, judgment, personal presence, a capacity for teamwork combined with a distinct political identity: a tall order, and few in the current cabinet meet it. The star turn—like a shark suddenly introduced into a pond of carp—is Lord Mandelson (no longer an MP, but a member of the political tribe). Most of the rest are undistinguished and some are worse. The wider ministerial cadre is lumpen.

And the Tories aren't exactly over-endowed either. They have a gifted leader in David Cameron, a decent clutch of senior figures and some sharp middle-rankers (such as Jeremy Hunt and Grant Shapps, culture and housing spokesmen respectively). But if his party wins the general election, Mr Cameron may have to scrabble around among the new intake of MPs to form a plausible government. The Liberal Democrats have five or six impressive frontbenchers: not a bad ratio, given their overall numbers, but not an abundance either.

The shortage of quality is partly a result of recent history. In the past two decades, many politicians have followed a narrow and callow career path. Slick graduates work for MPs or think-tanks before finding safe seats. (Open primaries to select candidates, pioneered recently by the Tories in Totnes, could help broaden the intake if they become widespread.) After a short parliamentary apprenticeship, Labour high-fliers have been distributed, more or less randomly, across ministries with huge budgets and challenges, then reshuffled before they can acquire much experience. The length of Labour's term in office is also a factor. Most of its small group of able ministers have resigned in disgrace (some more than once), fallen out with the leadership or died. The next cohort have had daunting responsibilities thrust on them before they proved themselves equal to humbler ones.

But the basic cause of the dearth is structural: it is an unhappy function of parliamentary arithmetic. Take the number of MPs who represent the governing party in the House of Commons; subtract those unsuited to government office because of their views, age, disposition or dimness; and there aren't too many left to fill the 100-odd posts at the prime minister's disposal. Despite the misty nostalgia sometimes evinced for the titanic statesmen and oratory of yore, this is not a new problem. Sir John Hoskyns, an adviser to Margaret Thatcher, observed that governments are formed from "a talent pool that could not sustain a single multinational company."

The solution is simple. Prime ministers should reach beyond Westminster for more of their hires. The more technocratic departments could be led by captains of industry or accomplished scientists. Some might even survive handovers of power, like Robert Gates, the defence secretary retained by Barack Obama.

There are two obvious objections. One is empirical: importing outsiders into British politics has not been universally successful. Of the so-called "goats"—the admiral, diplomat, businessman and surgeon recruited by Gordon Brown in 2007 to his "government of all the talents"—all but the admiral have quit. The slow, consensual, decision-making of government can be frustrating for some schooled in more pliant environments such as business; the need for obedient line-toeing can evidently grate. On the other hand Lord Adonis is a fine, well-informed transport secretary. The lesson may be that non-politicians can flourish when they are not smothered by cabinet superiors.

The second objection involves protocol. Since Lord Carrington resigned as foreign secretary in 1982, the top jobs have been reserved for MPs—with the obvious and controversial exception of First Secretary Mandelson—because of the feeling that their holders should be directly accountable to the elected representatives in the Commons, the body from which governments derive their legitimacy. But there is no insuperable reason why ministers drafted into the cabinet should not appear for scrutiny there, as French ministers are quizzed by the National Assembly. They needn't even be ennobled, as interlopers have hitherto been.

It is the sort of reform that a country so shackled by its history would struggle to swallow. But it might mean government ceases to be one of its last bastions of inefficient amateurism.

[Viking]

I'm just coming more and more to the conclusion that there are different skill sets that a politcian needs.

The skills to get elected, stay elected, managed a ministry and stay on the press' good side are four different skill sets and they don't often exist within one person. Any political party would probably need campaigner, ministers, parliamentarians and media representatives. Trying to find one person to do all of that just feels silly to me. 

[The Brain]

I don't think Hitler is the answer.

[Viking]

I don't think Hitler is the answer.

that depends on the question... if it is

"Who was the leader of the NSDAP and Nazi Germany?"

then Hitler is the answer!

[MadImmortalMan]

The answer is election by kidnapping. After all, the biggest thing that disqualifies a person from being a good legislator is the desire to be a legislator. People should be nominated without their consent and elected. Then they should be kidnapped and forced to serve a term before being released to go back to doing something productive with their lives. Like jury duty. 

[Viking]

The answer is election by kidnapping. After all, the biggest thing that disqualifies a person from being a good legislator is the desire to be a legislator. People should be nominated without their consent and elected. Then they should be kidnapped and forced to serve a term before being released to go back to doing something productive with their lives. Like jury duty. 

Plato had that idea 2400 years ago.

[Martinus]

The answer is election by kidnapping. After all, the biggest thing that disqualifies a person from being a good legislator is the desire to be a legislator. People should be nominated without their consent and elected. Then they should be kidnapped and forced to serve a term before being released to go back to doing something productive with their lives. Like jury duty. 

Actually I agree with you. Sortition is a great idea. Sure, you can get morons, but then again you get them through normal election process too, and in the aleatory democracy you are at least less likely to get power-mad morons.

[Zanza]

The answer is election by kidnapping. After all, the biggest thing that disqualifies a person from being a good legislator is the desire to be a legislator. People should be nominated without their consent and elected. Then they should be kidnapped and forced to serve a term before being released to go back to doing something productive with their lives. Like jury duty. 

I think that (and his military success of course) is why Frederick II is called The Great nowadays.

[Josquius]

If there's one thing I've learned as I've gotten older its this; most modern politicians are scum.

[Viking]

If there's one thing I've learned as I've gotten older its this; most modern politicians are scum.

Is there anything that makes you think that the politicians of other periods were less scummy?

[Zanza]

Is there anything that makes you think that the politicians of other periods were less scummy?

My impression is that most of them were even worse than today's politicians.

[Josquius]

If there's one thing I've learned as I've gotten older its this; most modern politicians are scum.

Is there anything that makes you think that the politicians of other periods were less scummy?

ish.
They were a different kind of scum though.

[saskganesh]

I'm just coming more and more to the conclusion that there are different skill sets that a politcian needs.

The skills to get elected, stay elected, managed a ministry and stay on the press' good side are four different skill sets and they don't often exist within one person. Any political party would probably need campaigner, ministers, parliamentarians and media representatives. Trying to find one person to do all of that just feels silly to me.

as to governing, the solution then is hiring very able deputy ministers, rather than party loyalists. Ottawa for example has a bit of a history of raiding, er, recruiting, from provincial ministries.

a perceived lack of talent is in part cyclical.

as to campaigning and press relations, there's a reason why most pols rely on others. usually its party hacks -- and in these fields, being politicized is a strength not a weakness -- but not always.

[Monoriu]

In Hong Kong, the bulk of the ministers and indeed the head of government are all career civil servants.  They are the only ones who have any experience in administration.  The elected politicians are perpetually in opposition.