Can Political Innovation Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy?
Setup
It seems paradoxical that the US, which touts itself as the bastion of democracy around the world, has a political system that, at the best of times, seems to jolt along in fits and bursts of efficacy. Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter wanted to understand why, and their research flips the script of the political system on its head.
- 2019 Festival
- USA
Politics isn’t broken, it’s just badly designed
The current US political system seems like a dysfunctional mess—if, on the rare occasion Congress manages to pass a consequential piece of legislation, it will almost assuredly be repealed when political control shifts from one of the two US political parties to another. But business leader Katherine Gehl wants you to understand the dysfunction isn’t because the system is broken. Gehl says the political system is actually operating exactly how it’s intended to:
So how can a political system be functioning properly yet deliver such dismal results for its citizens? The problem, according to Gehl, is that the needs of the US political system just don’t align with the needs of the country. The political system is designed to safeguard itself, not to champion the public interest.
Bad government is cutting us off at the knees
Economist and Harvard professor Michael Porter set out to understand why the US is struggling to maintain a high quality of life for its citizens and a robust economy, and the results were unequivocal: bad governance directly damages US social and economic progress. The ineffective US political system produces incoherent regulation, a restrictive tax code, and a substandard quality of life.
Whether it’s through rising infant mortality rates, difficult access to higher education, or subpar economic performance, Porter says the US and its citizens are being held back by the political-industrial complex. The US government is failing in its mandate, and it’s seemingly unable to reform itself in the necessary ways.
Power play: how a small minority controls US politics
Congressional primary elections are notoriously frequented by a small minority of highly partisan voters. Katherine Gehl explains how the primary system feeds the cycle of partisan gridlock in Congress:
When primaries are the only viable path to office in the US’ two-party system, that means eventual Congresspeople have to vote to fulfill the wishes of their primary voters or they risk losing their party’s nomination. And since Congresspeople also represent a political party whose main interest is self-preservation, these two factors combine to create an end result that doesn’t prioritize the public good.
What if we think of political parties as businesses?
It's time to stop thinking of our political system as a civic institution, says Michael Porter, and to start thinking of it as an industry. He explains how the two political parties operate as businesses, and the effects that has on citizens:
Is ranked choice voting the answer?
“The rules have been made to serve partisans, not to solve problems,” says Katherine Gehl. But the system that created our idiosyncratic rules also gives politicians the ability to change them. And that’s how political innovations like ranked choice voting can restore healthy competition in politics. Ranked choice voting, which is starting to be used by more and more states and municipalities, drastically undercuts the ability of the two major political parties to control elections.
How it works: ranked choice voting
Gehl argues that innovations that directly challenge the structure of our elections (like ranked choice voting) and our legislative process are the best hope we have. Some will take longer than others, and combating political entrenchment won’t be easy. But, says Gehl, our democracy depends on it.
Learn More
Additional Information
Resources
Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America—Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter
Explore More
USA
Global conflicts and health crises have put into stark relief deeply-ingrained gender roles in society. Yet the past years have also seen record-high numbers of women running...
The world seems to be moving and evolving faster than ever before, and democratic ideals are under threat in many countries around the globe. New York Times columnist and jour...
How is constitutional law being harnessed to address climate change? Ahead of Aspen Ideas: Climate, we caught up with Andrea Rodgers, Senior Attorney at Our Children's Trust,...
History has the power to teach us what to do in the present, but do we actually make good use of that tool? Many events in our recent past might suggest otherwise. American hi...
Of course, Black history shouldn’t just be a month-long nod on our yearly calendar — it is inextricable from American history and fundamental to the very soul of our nation an...
The unflinching humanity and morality that Martin Luther King, Jr. embodied is part of what makes his legacy so lasting. In addition to his preeminent civil rights work, he sp...
The stories we hear about migrants trying to escape difficult circumstances tend to focus on hardship, conflict, statistics and policy. We rarely get a deep look at any of the...
Most Americans today would agree that the dream of supporting a family and living a good life on one full time salary is not available to vast numbers of people. Wages have no...
Climate change catastrophes are already happening with increasing regularity, and it’s clear we need to take action. The Biden administration has set a target of zero carbon e...
Even when the economy is booming and unemployment is low, millions of Americans still face economic hardship. And in the last few years the United States has dealt with supply...
Almost everyone agrees that immigration policy in the United States is lacking, but despite decades of debate, Congress has not been able to pass comprehensive reform on the i...
Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing w...
It’s a fact: In communities where voting rates are higher, health outcomes are better. That’s why ER physician Alister Martin, the Founder of Vot-ER and CEO of A Healthier Dem...
Populations around the world have been electing more and more autocratic leaders in the past couple decades, via supposedly free, fair, and democratic elections. The freedom o...
Merely defining gun violence is difficult, and coming to agreement on what to do about it often seems near-impossible in the United States. But people on all sides of the deba...
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to issue major decisions that have profound impacts on the lives of Americans and the political future of the country. During the term that ju...
At the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, we dug into some of the most important and fascinating issues of our time, from rebuilding trust in our institutions and the promise and peri...
If one dives deeply into the statistics, the American Dream is actually quite alive and well. In his provocative book, The Myth of American Inequality, former U.S. senator Phi...
How do we describe the Republican Party today, and what are the dynamics that will shape its future?
In their new book, co-authors and Stanford professors Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami argue that big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental h...