Opposition and the blame game

In 'On Liberty' John Stuart Mill claimed that, for the good functioning of a system of government, two opposing forces must always be represented:

'It is almost a commonplace that a party of order or stability and a party of progress or reform are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life, until the one or the other shall have so enlarged its mental grasp as to be a party equally of order and of progress, knowing and distinguishing what is fit to be preserved from what ought to be swept away. Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.'

Here we have, not the ideological divisions of parties, but the opposing forces in a reasoned argument - the argument for the status quo versus the argument for change. And they are roles that cannot be played to their full measure through specific and persistent ideological polemics.

Few parliaments of recent memory have represented such an abstract division.

Britain is largely split between implacable rivals - Conservatives and Labour. So too is Germany - between CDU and SPD. The recent French elections, despite carrying hope for the French centre, have only further entrenched their left and right camps.

As for opposition parties: in the US, there have been suggestions (Cohen, 2012) that Republicans may have stepped a long way beyond merely keeping the government honest, and in the UK Labour has faced criticism (Lucas, 2012) for only beginning to develop prospective policy two years into this parliament (Wintour, 2012).

So why do these parties play the opposition role as they do? Why do they approach opposition as part of the strategic manoeuvring needed to challenge for the leadership?

It shouldn't really be a surprised that parties choose to build towards victory at the next election. But we should still be wary when parties offer little in the way of policy before elections - beyond the vagueness and vagueries. Because, in its own way, this absence of substance is tied directly to those aims of victory - the lack of policies making the party a less easy target to pin down.

All of it this is rooted with the primary problems of majoritarian democracy - there is power to be won. When held with a majority then the opposition becomes moot, a consolation prize for the loser. So the sides face-off to secure the all-to-often occurring majoritarian tendency of uncontested rule; where there are winners with power and losers without - rather than the representation of people in all the decisions of their lives that stands as the democratic ideal. And while they compete with tactical and strategic point-scoring, a great many things of importance are allowed to slip onto the back-burner in the name of victory in some greater ideological conflict - and this trend is troubling.

Particularly when it allows parties to conceal their policies and governing intentions while in opposition - then, if elected to office, to govern piece-by-piece through legislation; forcing journalists and others to act as translators and interpreters between these fragments and our attempts at building a macro-impression of that party's intentions.

And so, as these things cloud our vision, we're robbed of the oversight for which Mill described opposition as necessary.

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References:
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+ John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty'; 1859.

+ Michael Cohen's 'Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy?'; in The Guardian; 9 June 2012.

+ Caroline Lucas' 'Labour's lack of alternative vision'; in The Guardian - Letters; 15 January 2012.

+ Patrick Wintour's 'Jon Cruddas to co-ordinate Labour's policy review'; in The Guardian; 15 May 2012.