Against Political Compromise

Sustaining Democratic Debate

Alexander Ruser, Amanda Machin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367901318
• eBook ISBN: 9781351599870
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Political compromise is emerging as a preferred solution for numerous apparently intractable problems. Many have pointed to the rising degree of political polarisation around issues such as climate change, immigration and abortion. These are 'wicked problems' that are clearly not conducive to any sort of political consensus. The groups and individuals who are party to these issues disagree, often both fully and fiercely. As an alternative, political compromise seemingly offers a way of respecting difference while simultaneously generating a decision upon which policy can move forward. But proponents of political compromise should also acknowledge its significant weaknesses and dangers. Invoking recent examples from various policy areas to illustrate their claims, the authors assert that compromise can disguise inequality, reduce plurality and heighten uncertainty. In short, compromise can weaken democracy and must not be seen as some sort of political panacea.

This concise, accessible text offers a strong and provocative argument that provides a crucial counterpoint to the promise of compromise. It should prove of interest to students and scholars interested in compromise and consensus as well as democratic governance, social inequality, political apathy and environmental politics.

1 The problem of inequality

Introduction

Difference is what makes compromise difficult. Difference is also what makes compromise possible. It is the continued irreconcilability of various subjects, collectives, preferences and principles that provides compromise with an entry point. Differences are not expected to be overcome, but are on the contrary importantly upheld and respected in the compromise situation. In as far as they are to be brought together, the different positions are also held apart, which is why Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson assert that all compromise is characterized by mutual sacrifice on the one hand and wilful opposition on the other (Gutmann and Thompson 2010: 1126). Compromise thus reinforces the difference that also constitutes it.

The inevitable differences between the compromising parties are acknowledged, then, but compromise can appear to hold out a promise to balance difference with equality. In as far as compromise is not capitulation (where one side concedes everything and the other nothing) or correction (where one or the other side recognizes their error and adjusts their position to be fully in line with the other) or consensus (where all arrive at total agreement) or choice (where one irreconcilable option is voluntarily relinquished), in as far as compromise is none of these, there is some degree of mutual sacrifice, a give and take of sorts, on all sides. Compromise is often understood to be synonymous with phrases such as ‘meeting each other half way’ or ‘a meeting in the middle’ or ‘splitting the difference’, which describe and assume at least a degree of equality between the different parties. The compromises depicted in much of the literature involve equal sacrifices exacted from equally weighted positions that are accorded equal legitimacy and respect.

John Coons, for example, asserts that compromise is underpinned by the idea of basic human equality that calls for equal division of the good or matter in question: ‘compromise is a species of ordered justice inferable from the fact of human equality…. justice is governed by a presumption of equal desert, and an even apportionment is required’ (Coons 1980: 252. See also Menkel-Meadow 2006: 159). For Richard Bellamy and Martin Hollis, an acceptable compromise ‘presupposes at least a rough equality of power’ and ‘occurs among groups with a real power to be awkward, whose different ideals and interests have an equal claim to legitimacy’ (1998: 57). It is this rough equality of power, they explain, that ensures participants are able to dissent to a compromise that is unacceptable (1998: 57). But how rough is ‘rough’? And, if perfect equality cannot be expected or generated, then what degree of remove from perfect equality is unacceptable? How is such equality measured?

In this chapter, we will assess the expectations of equality in compromise and we will argue that equality certainly cannot be taken for granted. Although they may be formally equal in principle, parties to a compromise may be extremely unequal in various substantive ways: financial resources, political authority and negotiation skills, for example. It is thus problematic to assume that the starting points, the negotiation process and the sacrifices it ordains will be equally weighted between the parties. ‘Meeting halfway’ is frequently a delicate, demanding, and at times, an impossible undertaking. Halfway marks can be relatively easy to reach or they can be painfully far away. They are not pegged at equal distances but are constructed upon a possibly uneven and unknown terrain where the stakes are higher for one party than another.

As Avishai Margalit notices, a common motive for the sacrifice that characterizes compromise is precisely to create a ‘semblance of equality’ between nonequal parties. This is particularly the case for the stronger party: ‘The point of such sacrifice is indeed to confer recognition on one’s rival and to dispel an image of domination’ (Margalit 2005: 203). Thus, compromise apparently attempts to make differences apparently equal. The important question that Margalit’s observation provokes is whether this attempt to create a ‘semblance of equality’ actually works to introduce and increase equality, or whether it is merely a façade that disguises inequality and the uneven distribution of capital and power. And if it does, what implication does this hold for the legitimacy and endurance of a compromise? Does persistent inequality mean that compromise should, and will, be resisted?

Such questions are rarely asked in the literature on political compromise. Our concern is not just limited to the presupposition of equality that is seemingly taken for granted. Our concern is rather that equality between the parties of a compromise is promoted as part of the very reason why compromise is both legitimate and valuable. We ponder whether this problematic depiction might serve to gloss over persisting inequalities of the compromise situation. Politics rarely, if ever, takes place on a level playing field. And yet a common assumption of the proponents of compromise is that this level playing field exists and that the parties start with teams of equal numbers, capability and sponsorship.

This does not imply that compromises cannot be reached, nor that they cannot be valid, useful and even essential. But it is to bring to attention the power imbalances that may play beneath the surface of an allegedly equal negotiation. In this chapter we consider how compromise may disguise inequality and perhaps even reinforce it. We start by presenting an example of a compromise concerning equality, in which equality itself is compromised. We then unpick the problematic assumptions regarding equality in compromise. We argue that although compromise can be regarded as a facilitator of ‘social capital’ that benefits everyone in general, it is also a practice through which inequalities can be perpetuated. In short, our claim is that not only do inequalities potentially persist in compromise, but that equality is undermined by the overlooking of this possibility.

Compromising equality?

The campaign for women’s political equality has hardly followed a straightforward path. Various obstacles have presented themselves throughout and many compromises have been made. One pertinent example followed the petition presented by John Stuart Mill to the British House of Commons shortly after his election in 1865 (Purvis and Holton 2000: 1). The petition demanded women’s right to vote, but a question that was hotly debated concerned the position of married women in relation to this right. The civil status of a married woman at the time was that of ‘femme covert’; a wife’s legal personhood was subsumed under her husband, a status that was challenged by the idea of autonomy that went with enfranchisement (Holton 1998; Purvis and Holton 2000). In addition, this legal status of married women meant that they normally were denied rights to own or occupy property. Property, however, was seen as a requirement for enfranchisement – which meant, of course, that many men were also excluded. In short, ‘married women were defined as dependent persons with no rightful claim to the vote’ (Holton 1998: 17). On the one side of the debate, then, were positions that demanded that married women were explicitly excluded, in order to ensure that (propertyless) married women were treated equally to propertyless men and to safeguard the legal status quo. On the other were those who demanded that they were explicitly included, in order to safeguard their equality alongside unmarried women.

The compromise, suggested by Mill, was that the demand for the right to vote was simply phrased in terms of sexual equality (Holton 1998: 17). This seemed to offer a middle position between those who wished to explicitly exclude married women and those who wished to explicitly include them; instead they were simply not mentioned. The compromise, then, explicitly articulated the demand for equality and was seemingly based upon the notion of equality: women should have equal voting rights as with men because they were equal to men. But the compromise actually contradicted such ostensible equality. By silently disavowing married women, it failed to grant them equality as both women and as citizens.

A decade later Lydia Becker, a leading figure of the suffrage movement, gave her support to a proposed suffrage bill that would specifically exclude married women, since she believed this would give the bill a greater chance of success (Purvis and Holton 2000: 2). Again, we can see this as a compromise in which the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements make equal concessions: the vote is partly extended to women. And yet the more militant suffragettes argued that this sort of compromise actually reaffirmed their oppression. They rejected the authority of a government that they had not had any vote in whatsoever and demanded not simply the extension of the vote to all women, but rather the breaking down of the barrier to the vote and overturning the inequality that pervaded society (Kent 1990). Many claim, on the other hand, that such militant politics only hindered the campaign for the vote (Purvis and Holton 2000: 3). Accordingly, a compromise was seen at least as an improvement on the status quo. In any case, however, it is clear that equality does not characterize the starting point nor the outcome of the compromises regarding women’s suffrage. It was only in 1928 that women in Britain were granted the vote on equal terms as men.

Our point is this: that while the compromise may have involved an ostensible equality between the positions, those positions were hardly equally balanced in the first place. Women were simply unable to negotiate on equal terms; it was this very inequality, of course, that they were challenging. The compromises regarding women’s suffrage can be seen as a ‘step in the right direction’, but they can also be seen as reaffirming the very inequality that was in question. Compromise on equality does indeed compromise equality.

Equalizing compromise?

There is an expectation that compromise depends upon and institutes equality. First of all, a compromise might be supposed to draw equal concessions from each side, in order for them to ‘meet halfway’. The parties are supposed to be, more or less, equally happy or unhappy with the outcome. Certainly, compromise demands that there must be sacrifices, of some sort and degree, made on all sides. Margalit defines compromise as ‘an agreement that breaks a deadlock by making mutual concessions that express recognition of the other’s point of view and that are not based on coercion of one side by the other’ (Margalit 2005: 203, see also Jones and O’Flynn 2012b: 119; Lepora 2012: 5). Clearly there cannot be complete capitulation by one party and none at all on the other, for this would dissolve the compromise situation. Both sides must lose something, and both sides must gain something. But how evenly shared are the losses and the gains? How precisely located is the ‘mid-way’ point and in which way is it determined? What if the stakes are unequal and the move towards the middle is both more arduous, more risky and yet more necessary for one party?

A scenario that is hardly difficult to imagine is one in which a group of workers are demanding a pay rise of 4% from the large company they work for. The board of directors, after calculations and projections, believe they cannot afford a pay rise and remain competitive. The outcome, after negotiation between the parties, is a compromise of a pay rise of 2%. Such a collective bargaining agreement may seem to provide a textbook example for forging a compromise that is both fully equitable and utterly reasonable. And yet, although formal equality may be simplistically presupposed, the existence of real equality cannot be taken for granted. If, for instance, the compromise circles around the question of whether the workforce accepts wage cuts in order to prevent the relocation of factories and subsequent huge job losses, then the compromise situation clearly favours one side. Much more is at stake for one side. One side has more to lose and more to gain.

Peter Jones and Ian O’Flynn refer to situations like these when they write that ‘the concessions made by the parties do not have to be equal, and that raises the awkward question of just how asymmetrical a compromise can be and remain a compromise’ (Jones and O’Flynn 2012a: 399). As they explain: ‘two parties who have roughly equal bargaining strengths and equal interests in a conflict are likely to arrive at a compromise that divides the spoils equally between them’, but there can be no guarantee of this, as ultimately this outcome ‘will be a matter of pure chance’ (2012b: 121). In contrast, Martin Benjamin protests that an unequal and lopsided outcome could hardly be called a compromise (1990: 6). But the outcome of a ‘bad deal’ does not necessarily render the compromise invalid (Jones and O’Flynn 2012b: 123). Nor does the existence of a bad deal necessarily make the compromise bad; it may be a good thing that one side ends up making more concessions than the other does (Wendt 2014: 10).

Moreover, it is not clear how such equality would be assessed. The equality of the concessions made by each party might be easy enough to measure in a straightforward case of ‘splitting the difference’ or ‘meeting each other halfway’. But compromise often involves negotiation between currencies that are incommensurable (Bellamy 2012: 451). In disagreements over the issue of euthanasia, for example, where the sanctity of life is advocated by one side and the value of autonomy of choice on the other, there is no standard of comparison to be used to locate a mid-point. As Benjamin writes: ‘there appears to be no common currency, no way of representing or compensating for what is in dispute’ (Benjamin 1990: 15). It is therefore hard, perhaps impossible, to calculate whether the result is truly equal or if there is an ‘even split’ (Coons 1980: 250).

However, advocates of compromise commonly assert equality in a different sense. They regard equality not in terms of the outcome, but in terms of the process. Or, put differently, they do not demand equal concessions but they do demand equal participants. This is known as ‘principled compromise’. A compromise can be principled in two ways. First, the process is guided by norms such as equality, which makes the compromise fair: ‘the parties might accept certain principles of procedural fairness such as each party having an equal status in the compromising process’ (Jones and O’Flynn 2012a: 402). Jones and O’Flynn claim that a compromise that is seen to comply with a normative principle (such as equality) will be seen as fairer and therefore will be more stable and better able to assist in assuaging international conflicts (2012a).¹ The crux of their argument, then, is that any compromise guided by, or rather conceived to be guided by, fair procedures will be far more ‘stable and enduring’ and more conducive to overcoming conflict than a compromise that is not (2012a: 397). Thus, it is this ‘principled’ form of compromise that they assert should be pursued by the international community (Jones and O’Flynn 2012a: 404).

But for Jones and O’Flynn, the reason for entering into the compromise is not itself anchored in the idea of equality (Jones and O’Flynn 2012b: 121). Other accounts articulate a second, stronger notion of principled compromise, in which it is equality itself that generates the need for the compromise in the first place. As one of the proponents of such an account, Richard Bellamy argues that the type of ‘deep compromise’ that is conducive to democratic politics ‘need not just to involve principles but also be principled, showing mutual respect for the views of others’ (2012: 465, emphasis added). It is this sort of account that we turn to next. We argue that although principled compromise offers a hopeful picture, populated not by self-interested competitors but rather by respectful neighbours, this picture disguises the real power imbalances at play in politics.

Principled compromise

It might be assumed that compromise may not in actual fact involve much more than a mutual bargaining brought about through an awareness of each other as standing in the way of a particular desired goal. Each regards the other, in as far as they are doing this, as an opponent. These opponents may agree on nothing at all other than that a compromise, in this instance, is necessary in order for each to gain something rather than nothing. The parties are only orientated towards the goal of conceding the least possible to obtain the most possible. It is not necessarily the case that each respects the others opinions, let alone tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The problem of inequality
• 2 The problem of plurality
• 3 The problem of uncertainty
• Conclusion
• Index