How the power elite can – and does - manipulate us - Part 4 of the series on the political class

I’ve often in the past 20 years had to put myself in the shoes of Ministers and senior civil servants to help them develop “road maps” to their destinations of reform….An important technique I’ve used in these endeavours has been to get my counterparts to list why they think people behave the way they do – whether as officials, as citizens, politicians or businesspeople  – and what that tells us about the best way to try to get them to change. 

After all, the projects I’ve led only exist because someone has decided the present state of affairs is no longer acceptable…..so what aspects of whose behaviour are we talking about? And what is it that is most likely to make target groups change their behaviour?

-                Simple instructions?

-                Threats? Incentives?

-                Explanations and understanding?

-                Moral exhortation?

I have then developed, over the past couple of decades, this table which focuses on the assumptions we make about motives - and then explores the various mechanisms which are available to those trying to change beliefs and behaviour

The “behavioural turn” - Tools in the change process

Motivating Factor	Example of tool	Particular mechanism
1. Understanding	Training Campaigns Functional review	Rational persuasion Factual analysis
2. Commitment	Leadership Communications Training	Legitimisation; inspiration Pride
3. Maximising Personal Benefit	Pay increase and bonus Promotion (including political office) Good publicity Winning an award	Monetary calculation ambition Reputation; Psychological Status
4. Minimising Personal Cost	Named as poor performer Demotion Report cards	Psychological (Shame) Monetary Pride
5. Obligation	Law Action plan Family ties	Courts Managerial authority Social pressure
6. Peer influence	Bribery Quality circles	Pressure Support
7. Social influence	Opinion surveys	Feedback from public about service quality

The explosion of interest in behaviour

In the last decade, the question of changing (other) people’s behaviour has become a central one for government, business and NGOs. Professors Thaler and Cass may have “nudged” interest with their 2008 Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness but it was in fact the UK Cabinet Office which arguably set the ball rolling four years earlier with its Personal Responsibility and changing behaviour – the state of knowledge and its implications for public policy (2004) - an example which was followed with Changing Behaviour – a public policy perspective (Australian Government 2007).

The Nudge book certainly inspired the Cameron government some 7 years later to set up a Nudge Unit in the Cabinet but the British government had in 2008 been exploring this issue in its  The Use of sanctions and rewards in the public sector (NAO 2008) the very same year - accompanied by a literature review drafted by Deloitte

Even the House of Lords was not to be outdone – with the voluminous evidence of its Behaviour Change in 2011. And the voluntary sector put down an early marker with its Common Case – the case for working with our cultural values (2010) – which showed more familiarity with the marketing approach than did the economistic and rationalistic assumptions which were embedded in the erly British attempts.

So the World Bank was rather lagging behind when in 2015 its Annual Development Report got round to dealing with the issue - in its Mind, Society and Behaviour

In parallel to this burgeoning interest, the emergence of “behavioural economics” has represented a shamefaced admission by the “discipline” that their models had been based on utterly stupid assumptions of rationality…

However, policy geeks such as yours truly have perhaps been a bit slow to make the connection between the “behavioural turn” and “Big Data” - let alone the scandal of Cambridge Analytics

Useful Further Reading

articles

The Rational Paradox of Nudge in a world of bounded rationality; Martin Lodge and Kai Wegrich (2016)

Big Other – surveillance capitalism and the prospects for an information civilisation; S Zuboff (2015)

“Nudge, nudge, think, think”; article by John, Smith and Stoker (2009)

Wicked Problems and clumsy solutions – the role of leadership; Keith Grint (2008)

 “Fitting policy tools to context and motivation” (RG Young 2008)

The behavioural turn in law and economics - series of articles 

https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/2769

https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/2630

https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/2640

https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/2646

https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/2756

Reports and Books

Influencing Behaviours and Practices to tackle poverty and injustice (Oxfam 2018)
Governance and the Law (World Development Report; World Bank 2017)

https://www.idea.int/sites/default/files/publications/sanctions-rewards-and-learning.pdf (IDEA 2016)

Mind, Society and Behaviour (World Development Report; World Bank 2015)

A Practitioner’s Guide to Nudging; Rotman 2013

Behaviour Change (House of Lords (2011)

Finding Frames – new ways to engage the UK public in global poverty (2011)

Nudge, nudge, think, think; book by Peter John, Smith and Gerry Stoker (2011

Common Case – the case for working with our cultural values (2010
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness; Thaler and Cass (2008).

The Use of sanctions and rewards in the public sector (NAO 2008)

It was accompanied by a literature review drafted by Deloitte

Changing Behaviour – a public policy perspective (Australian Government 2007)

Personal Responsibility and changing behaviour – the state of knowledge and its implications for public policy (UK Cabinet Office 2004)

We need to talk about……..Power

Oborne’s book was interesting because, rightly or wrongly, it seemed to identify a turning point – that the way the British system of government operated had changed significantly (and for the worse) in the 1980s……He was not the only person arguing this – a year before, Simon Jenkins’ Thatcher and Sons; (2006) had conducted the same analysis but without using such dramatic terms as “new political class” and “manipulative populism”..

And even political scientists had been remarking that the much-famed “Westminster model” (of dominant political power) seemed to have been replaced with a much more consensual one of networked “governance”. Rod Rhodes – whom I briefly met in the 1970s - had been the foremost proponent of this view with his concept of “hollowed out government”

My table included a 2006 textbook British Politics – a critical introduction by Stuart McAnulla which nicely captures the sort of debate going on in those days in these academic circles……with McAnulla taking issue with both the traditional and reformist schools of thought and suggesting that we needed to extend our understanding of power beyond the political..…

It is, of course, nothing less than astounding that it took a global financial crisis to force academia to consider that government agendas are shaped by more than political manoeuvrings – and McAnulla’s is still a fairly lonely voice in his profession….The commercial links of New Labour were memorably exposed by George Monbiot in his 2001 expose The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain But, astonishingly, only 2 of the 500 pages of The UK’s Changing Democracy – the 2018 Democratic Audit have anything to say about corruption

Wolin’s Democracy Inc questioning the scale of commercial funding of American political personalities was distinctive only for it being produced by an academic (one of the most respected) and came out ten years ago. Neither it – nor the various studies of the significance of lobbying activity and resources at the European level – seem to make any impact on our discussions about democracy….Here is a rare 2014 academic contribution to the question of how consistent capitalism now is with democracy

We seem indeed averse to talking about “power” and its various facets…although most of us tend to have our own little conspiracy theory….I grant you that books on the subject tend to be rather specialised and daunting…..although Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power is a very good read…..if focusing rather too much on individual rather than systemic or structural factors.

When we look for books about power, we invariably find that they are written by sociologists, a group hardly famed for its clarity - one honourable exception being the recent Vampire Capitalism (2017).

Probably the best book about the subject is Steven Lukes’ slim Power – a radical view (2005) which starts with the simple story of how the post-war argument about the structure of power basically got underway with an American (Dahl) being upset with how 2 colleagues (C Wright Mills and Floyd Hunter) were portraying a power elite that seemed impervious to accountability – at both national and local levels…

Inevitably, however, even this book is guilty of the dreaded compartmentalisatio of which academia is so guilty and fails to mention the classic work of Amitai Etzioni who in the 1960s classified organisational power in terms of “coercion, economic assets or normative values”.. Sticks, carrots and moral persuasion we would call it.....

And if you’re wondering what “moral persuasion” is when it’s at home, Joseph Nye’s “soft power” will tell you more than Antonio Gramsci’s “hegemonic power”!!

Making sense of the structure of power

I had enjoyed my reread of “The Triumph of the Political Class” (2007) to such an extent that I started to google the other titles I remembered dealing with the same issue…to discover that what I imagined to be a dozen books on the contemporary structure of power (in the English language) turned out to be more than 20….And I can claim to have read only 8 of them – just over a third…..So some fast skimming is in order.  
A recent academic article I unearthed What do we mean when we talk about Political class? (Allen and Cairney 2017) turned out to be  a very pedantic analysis. But, as a background read to help make sense of the three thousand or so pages in this collection, I would highly recommend this (20 page) article on The Past, Present and Future of the British political science discipline

It’s on occasions like this that I would like to have some European counterparts to share analyses with……what, for example, are the key French and German books in the literature?? And how, if at all, do their studies differ from these?

Twenty years ago, the British system was universally admired. Now - and not only due to Brexit - it's seen a “basket case”. And sadly, with devolution now almost 20 years old, the Scottish Assembly and governance system does not seem to have lived up to its early promise.
The French have been highly critical of their centralised and elitist systems for some decades – and don’t seem any happier these days…

Only the German system had more balance – although it too is now suffering.

 Despite the explosion in the number of European political scientists these days (the European Consortium for Political Research alone claims 20,000 members), there doesn’t seem all that much in depth comparative analysis – at least not that’s easily accessible. Perry Anderson is about the only character with the linguistic ability to supply us Brits with extensive analyses of post-war and contemporary debates in France, Germany and Italy. His stunning study The New Old World (2009) can be read in its entirety here (all 560 pages).

Obviously my selection is arbitrary but I think it does catch most of the key writing…..The table starts with the most recent material - and the cutoff point is at the start of the new millennium since this was the point at which the New Labour style began to make itself felt....

Studies of the system of Power – mostly UK

Title	Summary
The UK’s Changing Democracy – the 2018 Democratic Audit; Dunleavy, Park and Taylor	“Democratic Audit” publishes an annual analysis – described here. This is its latest 500 page study – carried out by academics but who write well!
The Political Class – why it matters who our politicians are; Peter Allen (2018)	Focuses on the way the homogeneity of the political class damages the quality of decisions – written by a political scientist
Reckless Opportunists – elites at the end of the establishment; Aeron Davis (2018)	Rather one-sided critique
Prosperity and Justice – a plan for the new economy (IPPR 2018) Final report on economic justice	Most books focus on political power. Although this is a book about prescriptions – produced by a commission of the great and the good - it starts with an implicit critique which goes wider than mere politics
New Power – how it’s changing the 21st Century; Helmans and Timms (2018)	A typical, breathless, American “take” on how the internet is apparently challenging “old power”. Lacks any historical sense…..
State of Power 2018 (TNI)	An annual look at global capitalism by a left-wing Netherlands-based Foundation
State of Power 2017 (TNI)	Ditto
The Establishment  - and how they get away with it; Owen Jones (2014)	No pretence at objectivity in this hard-hitting analysis by a left-wing journalist of what’s wrong with Britain. So not limited to constitutional issues..Well written and strong on recommendations….
Ruling the Void – the hollowing of Western Democracy; Peter Mair (2013)	Rated as the most significant analysis of the issues of the past 25 years…by a political scientist
The New Few – power and inequality in Britain Now; Frederic Mount (2012)	A surprising critique from a Margaret Thatcher adviser!
Who Runs Britain? Robert Peston (2008)	Less an analysis dealing with the question than a critique of the political economic strategy of New Labour
Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the spectre of inverted totalitarianism; SM Wolin (2008)	Written by one of America’s greatest political scientists
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/	A great website by an academic whose book on the subject is in to its 7th edition
Triumph of the political class; Peter Oborne (2007)	A provocative analysis a journalist of how the traditional British Establishment has morphed into a much more powerful and homogeneous political class
Power to the People – an independent inquiry into Britain’s democracy (Rowntree Trust 2006)	Unfortunately, this investigation limited itself to political and constitutional aspects
British Politics – a critical introduction; Stuart McAnulla (2006) see also the google version	This is a textbook – but a rare critical one which nicely sets out what’s wrong with both the traditional textbooks but also the newer ones which emphasise networks and negotiation
Thatcher and Sons; Simon Jenkins (2006)	Very much in the style of the Oborne book, this “rightist” Guardian journalist gives a strong critique of the destruction of the last vestiges of pluralism
Who Runs this place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century; Anthony Sampson  (2004)	The last of a series produced over 40 years by this famous journalist
The Power Inquiry (2004)	Like the 2006 study, limits the analysis to the political aspects. Produced by a commission
Democratic Audit of the United Kingdom; (Democratic Audit 2003)	Incorporating the negative effects of New labour
The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot (2001)	The most explosive critique – from one of the best leftist journalists
Political Power and democratic control – the democratic audit of the United Kingdom; S Weir and D Beetham (Rowntree 1999)	One of the early audits

Controlling the Masses

Second-hand bookshops do not get enough credit – first for their shelter from the juggernaut marketing of fashionable titles and then with the delight of a text found which has languished unappreciated after a decade or so…..

Two titles caught my eye this week in a new downtown outlet opposite Bucuresti University – the first Who Runs this place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21^st Century (2004) was the final contribution of a famous journalist, Anthony Sampson, who was of south African origin and had started in 1962 what became a series of efforts to capture the anatomy of the UK power structure. ….Extracts can be read here. Sampson himself became so ensconced in his role as voyeur that he almost became one of the institutions of which he wrote – as can be seen in this tribute. New Labour was half-way through its 13 years as he was drafting the book and the impact of its media manipulation was already in evidence. But a quick skim suggested that it might suffer from being a tad incestuous – with the references consisting of either newspaper articles or political biographies. Not a solitary academic reference

The Triumph of the Political Class by journalist Peter Oborne (2007)  was the other (smaller) bargain which I swept up – first read and blogged about in 2014. It has a much more powerful tale to tell - of the destruction by Thatcher in the 1980s of the traditional power of trade unions, universities, local government, the judiciary and the civil service. And of the huge rise under Blair et al since 1997 of the power of the political class and media – and the further emasculation of parliament, the Cabinet and the civil service. Interestingly, he coins the phrase “manipulative populism” – and identifies the significance of Peter Mair’s writing to the fate of the Western political party

The nature and location of power fascinated me from an early age – I had studied Elite theorists in the early 1960s on my political sociology course at University. Although Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) and Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941) had led the way, it was Robert Michels’ (1876-1936) Political Parties (1911) which made the lasting impression on me - with his close study of trade unionists and social democrat politicians and derivation of “the iron law of oligarchy”.

For more than a century, one of the central issues of our time has been that of how “the masses” might be “controlled” in an age of democracy….These authors, thoroughly “Real” in their “Politik”, hardly suggested that the political and commercial elites had much to worry about – but this did not prevent writers such as Walter Lippmann (Public Opinion 1922) and Ortego y Gasset (Revolt of the Masses 1930) from conjuring up frightening narratives about the dangers of the great unwashed masses. Lippmann’s full book can be read here…

The scintillating prose of Joseph Schumpeter’s (1883-1950) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1943) was also a favourite of mine – with his theory of the “circulation of the elites” reassuring the elites that all would be well….

But the populism evident since the start of the new millennium has sparked new anxieties on this count amongst the liberal elites – and indeed raised the question anew as to whether capitalism is consistent with democracy…

One guy whose words are worth reading on that question is SM Wolin – whose book on the history of political thought - Politics and Vision - held me spellbound in the 1960s. In his 90s he produced this great critique of the US system – Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the specter of inverted totalitarianism (2008) – reviewed here. And this is an interesting recent article, Why Elites always Rule which reminds the new generation of the significance of Pareto’s work…..

Since starting this post, I’ve noticed quite a few new books on this topic and will do an annotated reading list shortly of the dozen or so more interesting of these….