Summer Reading: "Manipulatory Politics"

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 07/23/2015 - 11:05

Robert E. Goodin's book <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IuJRAQAAIAAJ&q" target="_blank">Manipulatory

Politics</a> (Yale Univ. Press, 1980) is valuable for its
"cataloguing [of] various modes of political manipulation," as the
author wrote in his Preface. Goodin found only a few of the cases
"ethically worrisome," but the fact that I disagree does not make
the catalog any less valuable. 
 
Definitions 
Goodin's definition of "manipulation" is "power exercised (1)
deceptively and (2) against the putative will of its objects." In
other words, what is most problematic about political manipulation
is its secrecy and its means of undermining resistance. Other ways
of saying this include, "When we manipulate people we cause them to
do something they would not otherwise have done," and "Manipulation
is influence accomplished by distorting or withholding information." 
 
The problem is that there is often no resistance to the worst sorts
of political manipulation, because they involve secrecy. No one
cannot resist what one does not know. Goodin's definition rests
heavily on the word "putative," which basically means "assumed." I
don't understand how you can assume what is the will of the objects
of manipulation, that is, of the public or sections of the public,
unless those manipulated are one's political opponents. 
 
At the local level, most conduct that is
kept secret does not involve support or opposition, but rather
involves actions that everyone but those benefiting from the
actions, and their closest allies, would oppose. For example,
matters involving conflicts of interest, the procurement process, or
land use decisions that do not involve a big development where there
is public discussion and sides being taken. Another area of
manipulation is the cover-up, which is an attempt to influence all
sorts of people solely to save one or more officials' skin. No one
outside the circle of those protected supports a cover-up. 
 
Clearly, my definition of "manipulation" differs from Goodin's, but
his catalog applies as much to my definition (power exercised
deceptively) as to his. He believes that serving the manipulator is
insufficient; the manipulated must be abused. I believe that
manipulation by government officials always abuses the public,
whether its members feel manipulated or not. 
 
The other thing that Goodin excludes from his definition of
manipulation is psychological manipulation, that is, playing on
people's psychological weaknesses. He limits his book to rational
manipulation, that is, using tricks to bypass reason. I don't think
that this distinction is valid, considering that playing on
weaknesses is such a common way of bypassing reason, but the
distinction is a useful way to focus a book. 
 
Goodin recognizes that power exercised secretly makes it impossible
to determine who has power in a community, under any of the
approaches that political scientists take. You cannot ask people who
has power in their community, you cannot look at actual political
decision-making, nor can you ascribe power to individuals based on
their control over "power resources" (the latter approach is
problematic because it is impossible to determine the extent of
secret resources). 
 
Goodin also recognizes how important unwritten rules are to
manipulatory politics: "By its very nature, manipulation must
be carried out by one group according to shared and settled rules
against another group which does not understand those rules."
For the most part, that "other group" is the public, although it can
also be competing contractors, out-of-town developers, and new entities seeking
grants, subsidies, and licenses. 
 
The Politics of Lying 
The first cataloging chapter in the book is "The Politics of Lying."
Goodin divides lying up into four strategies: lying, secrecy,
propaganda, and information overload. 
 
Lying. Goodin notes that one thing that protects lying politicians is the
idea that all politicians lie. Loss of credibility is, therefore, a
"public evil," the converse of a public good. 
 
Secrecy. Goodin says that secrecy works by distorting "the
informational base of decisions, by withholding true and relevant
data" rather than by disseminating falsehoods. But the result, I
believe, is essentially the same, since people do not know the
truth. 
 
Goodin notes that secrecy is less risky, because officials who hide
information cannot be caught in a lie, which is what most people
think is worse. Also, "a politician can reinforce the power that his
secrets afford him." Knowledge is power, and knowledge that others
do not have can be especially powerful. Even the careful leaking of
secret information, or the threat of it, can give government
officials power. And, of course, although Goodin doesn't say it,
secret information can be used to benefit oneself and those with
whom one has special relationships, both financially and
politically. 
 
One cost of secrecy that Goodin mentions is that government
officials without the information cannot perform their tasks
effectively. In fact, information is often withheld in order to
undercut others. Another cost he mentions is susceptibility to
blackmail, that is, to someone blowing the whistle on them. The fear
of such blackmail means that cover-ups are more necessary and those
who know about them are more likely to face intimidation. A third
cost is co-optation, that is, offering confidential information to
tempt people to leave their group and join the official's, or even sell out the co-opted individual's
followers. 
 
Goodin notes that "appeals to some sort of sacred principle are
clearly the strongest guarantee of secrecy." He was referring to the
principles of national security and executive privilege, but at the
local level the most sacred principle that officials make use of is
lawyer-client confidentiality. They argue that anything involving a
lawyer must be kept confidential. This isn't true, but many people
believe it, most of all lawyers themselves. 
 
Propaganda. Goodin calls propaganda "the flip side of
secrecy. The latter withholds embarrassing information, while the
former disseminates favourable reports. ... the information it spreads
is accurate, as far as it goes." Of course, if people realize that
information is propaganda, they will discount it. Keeping this fact
hidden effectively subsidizes biased information. 
 
Information Overload. Too much information can confuse an
issue and make it difficult for people to know what to think. At the
local level, information overload is rare, especially with respect
to the public, so I won't go into it here. 
 
Laying Linguistic Traps 
Goodin's second cataloging chapter looks at "linguistic traps," that
is, the way language is misused to manipulate people's thoughts. As
Goodin says, "The best way to keep ['political man'] politically
passive is to keep him in terra incognita by denying him the
linguistic equivalent of roadmaps." 
 
Goodin starts with a good quote from British philosopher Jeremy
Bentham (1748-1832):<blockquote>

Every improper term contains the germ of fallacious propositions; it
forms a cloud, which conceals the nature of the thing, and presents
a frequently invincible obstacle to the discovery of truth.</blockquote>

I also like contemporary French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's
"universe of the undiscussed," a form of "linguistic deprivation" in
which matters are not discussed improperly, but rather not discussed
at all (or, at least, not permitted to be discussed in public
venues, as I have seen happen a great deal). Talk of patriotism
(including pride in one's city), increasing the number of jobs,
keeping down the costs of government, etc. makes discussion more
difficult. But ethical language also can get in the way. In fact,
the fastest way to silence criticism is to say, "Are you questioning
my integrity?" or, about someone else, "She is a woman of great
integrity." 
 
Goodin says that the best way to deal with such abstractions is to
discredit "the entire system of abstractions in which such
troublesome traps are likely to be hidden." For example, when
someone speaks of their personal integrity, one can respond that it
is not a matter of their integrity, but of their professionalism in
dealing with a conflict of interest. The issue is trust in government with
respect to how officials deals with their conflicts.
It is important to be transparent both about the existence of
conflicts and about how they are being dealt with. 
 
Rhetorical Trickery 
Rhetoric has long been an effective way to manipulate the public.
"When audiences fall for rhetorical tricks," Goodin says, "they
often do so on the (mistaken) impression that they are succumbing to
a sound, logical argument." I have written a lot about these logical
fallacies; see <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/files/lgep1-0%20-%20Robert%20Wechsler.htm#Log…; target="_blank">the section on them in my book</a> Local Government Ethics
Programs. 
 
One problem with rhetorical trickery is that, as Goodin puts it,
what is said is not what is problematic; what is problematic
are the assumptions behind what is said, which "typically go
unexamined." For example, "every time ... a judge or bureaucrat says
he is 'merely following the rules', he is implicitly asking us to
assume premises for which he does not (and cannot) argue." 
 
Goodin writes, "The whole point of these rhetorical devices is to
hide crucial elements of the argument." Such devices also help to
hide ethical misconduct. When this occurs, the devices are
themselves part of the ethical misconduct, part of its cover-up. 
 
Rhetorical devices also debase political language, which has serious
long-term consequences. Goodin cites George Orwell's writings as
showing how harmful debasing political language can be. 
 
Goodin also explains the problems involved in using the word "we"
and in employing "a system of shared meanings," how this leads
listeners to share complicity for the argument, to effectively be
co-opted. This can also be caused by using metaphors that force
listeners to fill in the details of the argument themselves. 
 
Goodin says that in his Book of Fallacies, Jeremy Bentham
suggested that editors of records of legislative debates point out
instances of the use of logical fallacies. Bentham hoped that
legislators would learn to shout down those who used such rhetorical
trickery. This is a pleasant dream. Goodin imagines citizens
shouting down politicians that use such trickery, but this too is a
rare thing. 
 
Although Goodin gives it a separate chapter, the "rigging of the
obvious" seems to me another kind of rhetorical trickery. This kind
of rhetoric acts as if the proponent's bias is somehow natural or
built into the logic of the situation. An example from my own town
is allowing contractors based in the town to bid 10% more and still get the contract. This is
presented as best for the town (and local jobs), when it is actually
best for the contractors, who happen also to be among the principal
campaign contributors (most people work outside the town). 
 
Forms of ethics reform are also presented as the obvious solution.
Sometimes the reason presented is that the largest city in the state
has similar laws and institutions, sometimes that local towns have
similar laws and institutions (often no institution at all). The
obvious is usually weaker than the best, and it is rare to see a
discussion of best practices. 
 
Of course, the most obvious choice is "the way we've always done
it," at least when there is no scandal. Without a scandal, it is
assumed that the system works, rather than that it has allowed
officials to hide misconduct from the public. 
 
Symbolic Rewards 
Goodin wrote, "The essential objection to symbolic rewards is that
they are all too often used to buy off citizens who had been making
more substantial demands." This happens often with government ethics
programs. They are created after scandals to make it appear that
politicians care about ethics, but they often work primarily on
paper, especially due to limited powers and funding for and limited
independence of the ethics program. It often takes years before the
public realizes how little was actually accomplished by ethics
reform, and by then the politicians who established the minimal
program are out of office. 
 
The same thing is often true of "reform candidates," who push for
ways to hold politicians accountable, but create ineffective ethics
programs or drop the ball once in office. It is sad how many "reform
candidates" end up at the center of ethics scandals. 
 
Offers of symbolic rewards in terms of government ethics also distract
attention away from other important matters, including both other
issues and "the true workings of [government] institutions." It is
rare for politicians to describe in detail unwritten rules and
failures to follow processes in local governments. 
 
In addition, promises of symbolic rewards can raise expectations, so
that citizens are even more dissatisfied with ethical misconduct and
feel that nothing can be done about it. Something can be done about
it, but best practices are rarely followed. 
 
Conclusion 
The best statement in the entire book is on the book's
penultimate page:<blockquote>

People on their guard for manipulation usually look out for nasty
actions by nasty people. But ... the really troublesome forms of
manipulation tend to be impersonal and self-perpetuating. A more
reliable strategy for detecting (and thereby helping us to avoid)
manipulation more generally would focus attention first upon the
biases of the political system. Once we have seen who wins
regularly, our task is to investigate the source of these biases and
the mechanisms by which they are perpetuated.</blockquote>

In other words, the focus should be on institutional corruption and
who benefits from it in what ways and through what mechanisms.
Government ethics program have not, so far, been set up to do this.
Prosecutors have sometimes unearthed institutional corruption, but
it is now much harder due to recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions,
which require proof of bribery. 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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Summer Reading: "Manipulatory Politics"

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