A MINDSET OF POLITICAL COMPROMISE SHOULD DRIVE FUTURE EU-US RELATIONS

Authors: Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson

Amy Gutmann,Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Dennis Thompson, Professor of Political Philosophy at Harvard University.

Text has been edited

"The compromising mindset addresses the willful opposition that marks compromise. It counsels adversaries to negotiate in good faith and to restrain suspicions about ulterior motives: assume that your opponents' motives are mixed, that they act not only for their own political gain but also out of a desire to do what they think is right. In this way, without ignoring political realities, mutual respect counters the motive cynicism cultivated by the mutual mistrust in the uncompromising mindset.

Like toleration, mutual respect is a form of agreeing to disagree, but mutual respect brings with it more than the "live and let live" attitude of toleration. Mutual respect requires a favorable attitude toward, and constructive interaction with, the persons with whom one disagrees. It is the mindset of individuals who enter into negotiations in good faith, presuming their adversaries are as well-motivated as they are themselves, and also trying to act (at least partly) on principle.

Mutual respect is plainly a desirable ingredient in democratic politics, a virtue that makes debate more civil and relations more collegial. But it is more than that. In the case of compromise, it plays a special, more central role. To accept a compromise, you (and your supporters) have to believe that you are getting as much as you can reasonably expect under the circumstances. You do not want to sacrifice your principles or disappoint your supporters by passing up a better (more just) result you could have won by putting more pressure on your adversaries, or by holding out for more concessions.

The biggest challenge in defending an attitude of respect toward adversaries arises from the fact that the parties to a compromise cannot be certain that an agreement is the best they could achieve under the circumstances. This uncertainty infects not only ex ante but also ex post judgments about compromises. The answer to the question of what would have happened if one's side had resisted more strongly depends on a complex set of counterfactual assumptions that are hard to assess objectively at any time. People are far more certain about their principles than they are about probabilities, and judgment therefore tends to be driven more by principles. (This dynamic also reinforces principled tenacity.)

Under conditions of uncertainty, the trust that mutual respect generates is essential. It is one of the few resources on which the parties to a compromise can draw to assure themselves that they are getting as much as they can reasonably expect, and to assure their supporters that they are not selling out. If you and your supporters have reason to believe that your adversary is negotiating in good faith, you can have more confidence in deciding whether and how much to concede. If you and your supporters suspect that your adversaries are engaged in duplicitous behavior, you are likely to resist a compromise even if it appears to be (and actually is) an improvement on the status quo. By the same token, compromise becomes more difficult to the extent that adversaries try to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the other side, manipulate public opinion, or threaten political reprisals out of proportion to the issues at stake.

One defense is "economizing on moral disagreement." This practice encompasses several different strategies. It first encourages politicians to find common ground by dividing issues into their more and less contentious parts, and to make deals on the less contentious parts as a way to build mutual trust for finding agreement on the more contentious ones.

A more promising general strategy of economizing on moral disagreement is to seek cooperation on other issues where there might be more hope for agreement.

The governing process is more likely to encourage mutual respect  to the extent that it takes place in institutions that require politicians to work together on a continuing basis, and permits them to cultivate reputations and relationships across oppositional divides. Trust is more likely to be generated not in one-time negotiations but over time as politicians who oppose one another on some issues find ways to work together on others. As mutual mistrust can degenerate into a spiral of suspicion that is hard to stop, so mutual trust, once established, is self-reinforcing. It can persist even in the face of strong disagreements and ideological polarization. In the presence of mutual trust (along with principled prudence), the strong ideological differences that characterize a polarized politics need not stand in the way of cooperation and compromise.

The third important strategy of economizing on disagreement takes for granted that disagreement will persist on most issues. The democratic process does not always or even usually yield agreement, let alone general consensus. Dealing with the disagreement that is endemic to democratic politics in a respectful way is essential to reaching desirable compromises, whether now or in the future. Even rhetoric can make a difference. How politicians describe not only the substance of their opponents' proposals, but also their motives, affects the possibility of mutual respect.

Economizing requires a particular kind of verbal self-restraint in politics: it counsels avoidance of extreme exaggeration of the positions of opponents."