Identity Politics

This blog looks at the term ‘identity politics’, what it refers to and its implications for democratic politics.

Background: left and right
 
Traditionally we think of politics in terms of a left/ right spectrum. Those on the ‘left’ support state spending on social and welfare provision, state provision for services, including education and health, state ownership of some infrastructure and endorse active government management of economic and trade policy. Those on the left have welcomed the historic growth of the role of the state, the extension of the tools of government, notably the regulatory role, and the expansion of the instruments of government from binding laws to a variety of negotiated regulatory relationships and forms of ‘soft’ persuasion.
 
By contrast, those on the ‘right’ are sceptical of the role of the state, pointing to the short-termism of those in government, the advantages of the decentralised knowledge held in the private sector, the need to protect the individual perspective in the pursuit of collective goals, the record of waste and misjudgements that tarnish public sector management, the diagnostic mistakes that litter macroeconomic management, and they condemn over-regulation and extol the advantages of free trade.
 
Broadly speaking we have expected voters to line up somewhere along this spectrum with many occupying a centre ground rather than the extremes.
 
The meaning of identity politics: them and us
 
The term ‘identity politics’ refers to the way in which feelings of ‘identity’ have begun to intrude on the left-right and centre positioning of public opinion and arguably have become more important. Feelings of ‘identity’ may reflect religion, race/ethnicity, colour, gender, age, locational awareness as between city dwellers, suburbanites and rural dwellers, educational differences notably between the college educated and those without continuing education, and feelings of social distance between elites with privileged access to power centres such as Washington and Brussels and those outside.
 
In practical terms the importance of such identities can be seen in the positioning of the Democratic and Republican parties in the current US Presidential election. Kamala Harris claims to stand for all Americans but makes a special pitch to black voters, women voters and younger age groups while Trump’s pitch is primarily to those who feel at a distance from Washington, its insider lobbying culture and its money-fuelled decision-making. Trump’s pitch to outsiders brings along with it other forms of identity where feelings of being outsiders run the same way – evangelicals and rural voters for example.
 
Identity politics is not new. In the UK the Conservative party used to be identified with rural interests, notably landlords, and ‘white collar’ voters. The Church of England was famously defined as ‘the Conservative party at prayer’. The Labour party was associated with trade unions and the ‘blue collar’ voter, trade union membership and non-conformism. However, what has changed is the dynamic and the drivers of the relationship. Party platforms now have to be shaped to identities in order to appeal. They can no longer rely on policies presented along a left right spectrum as aggregators of interests and identities. Identities are the drivers.
 
In this new setting, identity groups do not respond readily to traditional left/right offerings or fit easily into such categories. The defining characteristic of identity politics is that feelings of identity delineate a ‘them’ and an ‘us’. Groups that define the ‘other’ as immigrants are sometimes categorised as belonging to the ‘far right’. But identities defined around race, colour, or gender, including gender identity itself, may belong more to the left of politics. Kamala Harris claims to stand for the centre left.
 
In the EU there is a conflict between the effort to develop a European identity based on the goal of ‘ever closer union’ and the declaration of fundamental rights twinned with it, and the reassertion of national identities that defines the ‘other’ as immigrants and sees ‘Brussels’ as elitist and unrepresentative.
 
In America when party leaders such as Harris or Trump appeal to identity as their calling card and the motivator to vote, the question is whether they are helping the United States to come to terms with its modern-day diversity or helping to further divide it.
 
Democracies depend in large part on political parties to bring together citizens holding diverse beliefs, with different interests and different identities. However, in both Europe and America political parties seem to have lost their ability to aggregate opinion in ways that help accommodate social and political differences. Party labels also delineate affiliations. However, in modern circumstances parties have become election machines for getting out the vote at election times. For ordinary citizens getting on with their daily lives, political parties no longer perform a significant socially binding and delineating role.
 
Because political parties have become the vehicle for accentuating identity-based politics rather than vehicles to overcome identity differences, it has become all the more important that democratic processes and institutions play their role in helping to ensure that people holding diverse beliefs and views can work together and accommodate to diversity. This blog therefore continues by looking at these processes and institutions and how they are framed.
 
Identity and democratic processes
 
Democratic processes are intended to encourage reason in the formation of public policies. In an ideal world, political debate about the right policy to pursue would follow reason, people would put forward reasoned arguments, for and against, and listen to and respect the views of people with whom they disagree. They would be expected to be open to changing their views in the light of reasons put forward by others. This is the ideal world described in theories of deliberative democracy. 
 
The great weakness in theories of deliberative democracy is that in the real-world people do not reason with others in this kind of way. Rationality in politics is a kind of associative reasoning where we listen to those we associate with – our families and friends, our social networks, our internet connections. This means we interact mainly with those with whom we agree. Moreover, we anchor our beliefs in line with our predispositions and prejudices and are likely to resist or block out those with whom we disagree. Identity based politics accentuates these weaknesses.
 
Despite the shortcomings of debate and reasoning among electorates, democracies can and do institute processes that are intended to facilitate the way that their diverse electorates can overcome their differences and work together. For example, consociationalism embraces proportional representation as the means to reflect all views. It also encourages the formation of coalition governments as well as procedures offering mutual vetoes on policies to significant minorities.
 
The EU offers another example of processes intended to ensure reasonable policies. What are known as ‘path rules’ are intended to make policy formation acceptable across the EU despite its diversity. The key process rules are ‘subsidiarity’ in areas where power is shared between the EU and its member states, and proportionality. Subsidiarity can be seen as about gathering the information and views needed to decide whether a policy should be enacted at the EU level and proportionality as about weighing the evidence for what kind of action is justified. 
 
The weakness in consociationalism is that the insistence that all views be reflected in policy formation often means that no agreement can be reached at all. Immobilism is the result, or difficult issues are simply avoided as too hot to handle and not discussed. The weakness of path rules such as those of the EU is that their interpretation is subjective and the Commission and Court of Justice have the first and last word in how to interpret them. Arguably they do not do enough to ensure that EU policies have support across the spectrum of identities in the EU, notably in respect of feelings of national identity and distance. 
 
In the US the electoral college method for choosing the President is often criticised. It means that a President can be elected on a minority vote nation-wide. However, it does have the merit of ensuring that candidates must appeal to diverse electorates in the different states of the Union, particularly the so-called ‘swing states’. 
 
Because path rules may not provide the support necessary, the focus turns to how far institutions can further support processes and help bring together diverse electorates. 
 
Identity and institutions
 
In a world of misinformation, false news, the social media and views mediated by like-minded groups not open to the views of others or open to persuasion, an increasingly crucial task for political institutions is to ensure the integrity of the different sources of information and knowledge available to societies in their collective decision taking. This means protecting the associative reasoning of the electoral branches of government, the knowledge-based reasoning of agencies outside central government and the specialised reasoning of judiciaries. The classic answer on how to achieve this is through the separation of powers so that each branch involved in social decision-taking is protected. Each branch has a role in holding the others in check as well as in disciplining its own actions. 
 
The problem left unresolved in the separation of powers is how to bring together the different sources and types of reasoning and the decision rules involved. Consociationalism gives priority to the political branch and unanimity. The EU encourages the Brussels institutions to work together collectively. The American system encourages a structured interchange between the electoral branches and agencies. 
 
Conclusions
 
Identity politics has always been part of democratic politics and decision-taking and always will be. What is new is that political parties seem to have lost their ability to provide a supervening public logic and have themselves become driven by the identities of a ‘them and us’ world. This places a much greater burden on political processes and institutions to bring diversified societies together. Both the EU and the US are struggling to meet this challenge. Former President Trump damaged the separation of powers by stacking the Supreme Court with political appointees and he remains a threat to democracy in the US. In the EU national identities are being reasserted in part in response to the amount of discretion claimed by the Brussels institutions working together. Democracies need to reconsider both their processes and institutional roles to better combat the divisiveness of identity politics.