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Neat theory, but a more plausible explanation for Obama's current policy is that he was simply dishonest in his campaigning. He exploited voters' anxiety about

Neat theory, but a more plausible explanation for Obama's current policy is that he was simply dishonest in his campaigning. He exploited voters' anxiety about war and surveillance by pretending to be against these things and therefore won the election. This happens all the time, all around the world, voters are gullible and want to believe a good story ("Change"). My other gripe with this article is that it concludes it's the people's responsibility to change the way government is functioning, but if it can't be done through voting, what does the author expect them to do, short of a rebellion? It effectively discourages the reader from voting and suggests we should just give up trying to do anything about the situation.

mercer 12y ago
While dishonesty is a plausible explanation too, I think the article's argument makes just as much sense. In fact, I recall the same basic argument brought forward by a Political Science professor here in Holland: because the apparatus of civil servants and experts doesn't really change so much between elections, these people wield much more power than we think they do and policy often stays continuous as a result.
- pas 12y ago
  Somehow it must be beneficial for the elected officials to keep these non-changing people in charge. Obama was probably simply persuaded by the many-many human faces of the administration currently carrying out the atrocities (War on Drugs, NSA, foreign policy), and focused more on the soft-programs (stimulus, healthcare; and random acts of obama, that largely failed), plus got completely broken and stonewalled by an uncooperative House.
  - davidw 12y ago
    > Somehow it must be beneficial for the elected officials to keep these non-changing people in charge. Yes, because the vast majority of them are simply the bureaucrats that keep things ticking over because they know how to do their jobs.
  - mercer 12y ago
    I suppose a big benefit is just not having to worry about it. I think in practice that's one of the most common reason to leave things be. Any change will create enemies within, might lead to worse outcomes, and will cost significant work. I've been in a number of situations where a 'bad' manager remained while new upper management was busy with 'an entirely new approach' and changing things left and right. In one case, I had the luck of being a good friend of someone in upper management, so I could discuss this issue. This manager indicated that he was well aware of the problem, but he explained that it simply wasn't worth the trouble to deal with this 'bad' manager right now, for pretty much the reasons I mentioned above. Of course, 'right now' remained the argument, since there were always more important things to do. For all I know the guy's still there, or maybe even promoted. Hell, come to think of it, it's very much like the code I work with. Significant chunks are a mess, but there never seems to be time to refactor. New features and 'big changes' always take priority, and somehow the big changes rarely impact that shitty code, so it stays. I'm not sure if that's coincidental. tl;dr: apparently refactoring is avoided in most (bureaucratic) human endeavors.
- lazyjones 12y ago
  Perhaps the situation is different in Holland and the USA, but I know for a fact that favoritism towards party members, relatives and their friends is very common after elections among higher ranks of civil servants, both in Austria and Greece (where it was common in the 80's to "recolor" large parts of the public sector when the ruling party changed). This weakens the "static bureaucracy" hypothesis in my book. As others have pointed out, the POTUS directly appoints many key people and therefore cannot be completely powerless to actually "change" policy (assuming there isn't a closed pool of like-minded people to choose from).
  - mercer 12y ago
    I must admit I don't know enough about Holland to say anything with certainty. However, I'm inclined to think that the 'static bureaucracy' is much stronger in Holland because we're very consensus-driven in our politics. As such, large-scale recoloring is probably either undesired by the new powers, deemed unnecessary, or frowned upon too much by everyone involved to be a viable option. But I'd love to hear from someone who knows more about the Dutch system!
  - mpyne 12y ago
    The US bureaucracy is vast, and although POTUS has the ability to directly appoint many, that ability is neither unilateral (since the Senate must confirm most of the most important appointees) nor wide-ranging. Civil service hiring rules has much more impact on the makeup of a bureaucracy than the President himself does. It's simply not possible to "recolor" the public sector at a whim in the USA.
    - trop 12y ago
      And there's the narrative as told in the (much recommended on HN) book "Command and Control": Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon administrations all arrive outraged at the military's nuclear war strategy. And then after much attempt at reform, they leave with virtually the same strategy intact. Partly just due to getting draw into the military's way of thinking, partly due to not being able to present compelling alternatives to the military command. And then when changes do happen, they are driven bottom-up by particular events/catastrophes which make clear that the current strategies are utterly untenable. It's tough to a replace one leaky abstraction with another (potentially leaky) abstraction!
calibraxis 12y ago
"short of a rebellion": Once that's off the table, then yeah, we're stuck with ridiculously ineffective outcomes. Either we pull the lever like gamblers in a rigged game ("voting"), or give up. Intelligent rebellion simply amounts to fixing your society. There was never any time in history where people should just coast by, letting their masters decide the system's rules for them.
crdoconnor 12y ago
>My other gripe with this article is that it concludes it's the people's responsibility to change the way government is functioning, but if it can't be done through voting, what does the author expect them to do, short of a rebellion? Two other options that are available to average citizenry are protest, strikes and sabotage (the latter two are possible only if you are directly involved - which a lot of people are). These are, in fact, how most large social changes that benefit the people come about. Not through voting. We got the right to vote, the civil rights act, social security, medicare, the weekend, the formation of the middle classes and most other goodies this way.
mmcconnell1618 12y ago
Another possible explanation is that government policy is hard. Presidents are mostly competent people trying to do the best for the country. Faced with difficult choices they come to similar policy decisions based on a rational course of action. Once they are inside the White House they have a different perspective and perhaps have a much better understanding of why their predecessors made similar choices.
coryfklein 12y ago
> if it can't be done through voting, what does the author expect them to do, short of a rebellion? I personally don't want a part in the corruption, so I choose not to vote myself. What would happen if less than 5% of the people "governed" voted for that government? The establishment would lose its legitimacy. It would fall apart pretty quickly from there.
- scribu 12y ago
  I keep encountering this line of reasoning: 1. Almost everyone refuses to vote. 2. The establishment loses legitimacy. 3. ... ? 4. Profit. What's step 3? My guess would be a lot of turmoil, and if civil society remains as apathetic as they are now, the replacement won't be any better.

mercer 12y ago

While dishonesty is a plausible explanation too, I think the article's argument makes just as much sense. In fact, I recall the same basic argument brought forward by a Political Science professor here in Holland: because the apparatus of civil servants and experts doesn't really change so much between elections, these people wield much more power than we think they do and policy often stays continuous as a result.

pas 12y ago
Somehow it must be beneficial for the elected officials to keep these non-changing people in charge. Obama was probably simply persuaded by the many-many human faces of the administration currently carrying out the atrocities (War on Drugs, NSA, foreign policy), and focused more on the soft-programs (stimulus, healthcare; and random acts of obama, that largely failed), plus got completely broken and stonewalled by an uncooperative House.
- davidw 12y ago
  > Somehow it must be beneficial for the elected officials to keep these non-changing people in charge. Yes, because the vast majority of them are simply the bureaucrats that keep things ticking over because they know how to do their jobs.
- mercer 12y ago
  I suppose a big benefit is just not having to worry about it. I think in practice that's one of the most common reason to leave things be. Any change will create enemies within, might lead to worse outcomes, and will cost significant work. I've been in a number of situations where a 'bad' manager remained while new upper management was busy with 'an entirely new approach' and changing things left and right. In one case, I had the luck of being a good friend of someone in upper management, so I could discuss this issue. This manager indicated that he was well aware of the problem, but he explained that it simply wasn't worth the trouble to deal with this 'bad' manager right now, for pretty much the reasons I mentioned above. Of course, 'right now' remained the argument, since there were always more important things to do. For all I know the guy's still there, or maybe even promoted. Hell, come to think of it, it's very much like the code I work with. Significant chunks are a mess, but there never seems to be time to refactor. New features and 'big changes' always take priority, and somehow the big changes rarely impact that shitty code, so it stays. I'm not sure if that's coincidental. tl;dr: apparently refactoring is avoided in most (bureaucratic) human endeavors.
lazyjones 12y ago
Perhaps the situation is different in Holland and the USA, but I know for a fact that favoritism towards party members, relatives and their friends is very common after elections among higher ranks of civil servants, both in Austria and Greece (where it was common in the 80's to "recolor" large parts of the public sector when the ruling party changed). This weakens the "static bureaucracy" hypothesis in my book. As others have pointed out, the POTUS directly appoints many key people and therefore cannot be completely powerless to actually "change" policy (assuming there isn't a closed pool of like-minded people to choose from).
- mercer 12y ago
  I must admit I don't know enough about Holland to say anything with certainty. However, I'm inclined to think that the 'static bureaucracy' is much stronger in Holland because we're very consensus-driven in our politics. As such, large-scale recoloring is probably either undesired by the new powers, deemed unnecessary, or frowned upon too much by everyone involved to be a viable option. But I'd love to hear from someone who knows more about the Dutch system!
- mpyne 12y ago
  The US bureaucracy is vast, and although POTUS has the ability to directly appoint many, that ability is neither unilateral (since the Senate must confirm most of the most important appointees) nor wide-ranging. Civil service hiring rules has much more impact on the makeup of a bureaucracy than the President himself does. It's simply not possible to "recolor" the public sector at a whim in the USA.
  - trop 12y ago
    And there's the narrative as told in the (much recommended on HN) book "Command and Control": Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon administrations all arrive outraged at the military's nuclear war strategy. And then after much attempt at reform, they leave with virtually the same strategy intact. Partly just due to getting draw into the military's way of thinking, partly due to not being able to present compelling alternatives to the military command. And then when changes do happen, they are driven bottom-up by particular events/catastrophes which make clear that the current strategies are utterly untenable. It's tough to a replace one leaky abstraction with another (potentially leaky) abstraction!

calibraxis 12y ago

"short of a rebellion": Once that's off the table, then yeah, we're stuck with ridiculously ineffective outcomes. Either we pull the lever like gamblers in a rigged game ("voting"), or give up. Intelligent rebellion simply amounts to fixing your society. There was never any time in history where people should just coast by, letting their masters decide the system's rules for them.

crdoconnor 12y ago

>My other gripe with this article is that it concludes it's the people's responsibility to change the way government is functioning, but if it can't be done through voting, what does the author expect them to do, short of a rebellion? Two other options that are available to average citizenry are protest, strikes and sabotage (the latter two are possible only if you are directly involved - which a lot of people are). These are, in fact, how most large social changes that benefit the people come about. Not through voting. We got the right to vote, the civil rights act, social security, medicare, the weekend, the formation of the middle classes and most other goodies this way.

mmcconnell1618 12y ago

Another possible explanation is that government policy is hard. Presidents are mostly competent people trying to do the best for the country. Faced with difficult choices they come to similar policy decisions based on a rational course of action. Once they are inside the White House they have a different perspective and perhaps have a much better understanding of why their predecessors made similar choices.

coryfklein 12y ago

> if it can't be done through voting, what does the author expect them to do, short of a rebellion? I personally don't want a part in the corruption, so I choose not to vote myself. What would happen if less than 5% of the people "governed" voted for that government? The establishment would lose its legitimacy. It would fall apart pretty quickly from there.

scribu 12y ago
I keep encountering this line of reasoning: 1. Almost everyone refuses to vote. 2. The establishment loses legitimacy. 3. ... ? 4. Profit. What's step 3? My guess would be a lot of turmoil, and if civil society remains as apathetic as they are now, the replacement won't be any better.