Who is a good politician?
At this juncture, for the survival of a healthy democracy, India could immensely benefit from a research-backed discourse on ‘who is a good politician’.
Do we ever ask ‘who is a good politician’? Somehow, in a country like ours which is always in election mode, discussions on politics are a common sight at roadside tea-stalls and on train journeys, but we happen to avoid this question. Most of these discussions have critical undertones, are polarised based on the political ideology one assigns to, and mostly about “choosing the lesser evil”. So, what refrains us from indulging with the real question that matters?
People have lapped up the idea that the government keeps the citizens uneducated because it’s easier to rule over an uneducated citizenry. But, with internet affordability, the barrier to information has been broken and citizens can access information at the touch of their smartphones today. This should have indulged citizens of a country marred by corruption, high crime rates and all things wrong in a developing country, to find the right kind of politicians as their representatives.
Some would say “the present-day politicians are not good enough”; for some, “politics has never done any good”; whereas others are simply “apolitical”. While this would have earlier suggested that people are losing interest in politics, the fast transition into the digital era has people suddenly hooked to political discussions, albeit in binaries of bad and worse.
A democracy that aspires to become a superpower and the knowledge hub of the world, has struggled to keep up with the evolving nature of politics. We idolise the first generation of politicians who grew out/were products of the independence struggle against British rule. We idolise the charisma and methods of Gandhi, the simplicity of Shastri, the willpower of Patel, the knowledge and vision of Ambedkar, the honesty of Chaudhary Charan Singh, and so on. We live in nostalgia idolising leaders of yore, but are unwilling to develop leaders of the future. If only previous governments or at least the political parties had invested to identify suitable candidates to contest elections, the country would have benefitted a whole lot from it. But how do we get there?
The developed countries have reached where they are because they understood the importance of research and have invested in it. We must understand that knowledge is essential to the development of the country. Knowledge of the sustainable mechanism to identify the right kind of candidate for political office would yield promising results. But in India, neither the citizens nor the political parties have worked to initiate a discourse on ‘who is a good politician’. Is it a myth or is it actually possible to define the traits of a ‘good politician’?
Previous researches by Rainbow Murray in 2010 and 2015, and Reuven Hazan & Gideon Rahat in 2010 have shown that the political parties use several subjective criteria to select candidates for electoral office such as eloquence, intelligence and charisma. They may also select candidates based on ambiguous parameters such as party loyalty, family ties, and so on. However, Prof Murray argues that the use of proxy variables like ‘educational attainment’ and ‘career path’ for measuring eloquence and charisma creates problems because the studies which use these criteria may find it difficult to distinguish between those who gained high social status through the attainment and those who obtained it through privilege. Prof Murray’s research led her to the conclusion that an ideal candidate good for electoral office is a person who has a genuine and demonstrable knowledge of the issues and problems faced by people, and a dedication to address them. That person should also have outstanding interpersonal skills and should be able to fight for a cause and negotiate compromises when necessary. It can be deduced that the qualities she identifies for a good politician are knowledge, a problem-solving attitude, intention to work for a cause and good communication and advocacy skills.
Organisational psychologists have also contributed to identifying the ‘traits of a good politician’. Prof Jo Silvester, a leading name in the field, explained in an interview published in The Psychologist - the official monthly publication of the British Psychological Society - that she had conducted 360-degree feedback for politicians from three political parties in the UK which led to the mapping of important developmental needs for politicians. In order to capture common views about the good and bad political performance, she interviewed people from all stakeholder groups to develop a framework of competence and behavioural indicators that could be used as selection criteria for candidates for political office.
Also, various studies have found ‘locality’ and ‘accessibility’ of the candidate being significantly associated with voter preference, including Cowley (2013), Vivyan and Wagner (2015). Voters believe that local candidates may have a better understanding of local issues which may help them in addressing those issues effectively.
Several qualities of a good politician as outlined by previous research, like Berkvens & Van den Boomen (2009), Silvester & Sutton (2010), Silvester (2012), Murzaeva & Akçali (2013) and Murray (2015) have a close association with the qualities identified for leadership in various theories of management and social work studies. Thus, leadership qualities such as selflessness, integrity and vision become critical to the definition of a good politician. However, without research-backed indicators for a good politician, it’s a different story in the Indian context as politicians are not perceived positively by many people. A survey by Pew Research Centre published in 2019 observed that two-third or 64 per cent of Indians considered “most politicians as corrupt” with more than 50 per cent of the respondents expressing that “no matter who wins elections, things do not change very much”.
Research in this direction within the Indian context should consider a multidimensional approach taking into account that a politician has multiple roles to play. It should take inspiration from the fields of management, social work and psychology. As in the case of the UK, Prof Silvester has worked with political parties to “develop fair and robust candidate selection procedures”. Such initiatives by political parties would help develop a sustainable mechanism for them to create a pool of suitable candidates for political recruitment.
Focussed initiatives must also be taken up by think tanks, civil society organisations and research-oriented academic institutions in India for identifying traits of a good politician from the perspective of the political parties and the voters. According to an analysis by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) in 2004, of 514 MPs, 125 or 24.3 per cent had criminal cases against them. In their 2019 analysis, this number rose exponentially as 43.5 per cent of 542 MPs had criminal cases against them. In addition to this, 31 per cent of 1,064 candidates contesting in the first phase of Bihar Assembly Elections in October 2020 have criminal cases against them, as observed by ADR.
This suggests that we, in India, lack a comprehensive discourse on ‘who is a good politician’. At this juncture, for the survival of a healthy democracy, India could immensely benefit from a research-backed discourse on this issue.