As the drumbeat of discontent grows louder,politics is increasingly fitting a complicated and messy affair – just quiz Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott The political scientist Gerry Stoker tells us democracy is designed to disappoint, and hes absolutely upright. Politics is a deeply flawed business. We want our politics simple, and clean and clash-free,when inherently it is none of those things. Democratic politics isn’t a panacea (a remedy for all ills; cure-all; an answer to all problems), it is simply a mechanism to synthesise societal clash without resort to violence. Democracy is about “the tough process of squeezing collective decisions out of multiple and competing interests and opinions”, and Stoker writes in Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work. “Politics is designed to disappoint – that’s the way that the process of compromise and reconciliation works. Its outcomes are often messy,ambiguous and never final.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com