Summer Reading: "Manipulatory Politics"

Robert E. Goodin's book Manipulatory Politics (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):

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.

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 the section on them in my book 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:

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.

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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