The US and UK Have Very Different Political Institutions

I completely agree with David Brooks that there’s something admirable about the operation of British political institutions:

It’s just that the system worked. Each party took different whacks at pieces of the great national problem, depending on its interests. Opposing parties, when it was their turn in power, quietly consolidated the best of what the other had achieved. Gradually, through constructive competition, the country quarreled its way forward.

This is what I’ve called “bipartisanship through alternation.” The postwar Labour governments did a bunch of stuff, only some of which was undone by Margaret Thatcher who also did some new stuff, only some of which was undone by Tony Blair who also did some new stuff, etc. You almost never have “compromise” and you also don’t see a straight ping-ponging back and forth. Instead, policy zigs and zags.

But Brooks attributes this to the personal qualities of British elites:

Britain is also blessed with a functioning political culture. It is dominated by people who live in London and who have often known each other since prep school. This makes it gossipy and often incestuous.

But the plusses outweigh the minuses. The big newspapers still set the agenda, not cable TV or talk radio. If the quintessential American pol is standing in his sandbox screaming affirmations to members of his own tribe, the quintessential British pol is standing across a table arguing face to face with his opponents.

British leaders and pundits know their counterparts better. They are less likely to get away with distortions and factual howlers. They are less likely to believe the other party is homogenously evil. They are more likely to learn from a wide range of people. When they do hate, their hatreds are more likely to be personal and less likely to take on the tenor of a holy war.

It’s difficult to know how to quantify any of those assertions. But the real difference between the US and UK seems clear to me—it’s the institutions. But Brooks sees the institutions as pushing against the kind of cozy comity (“The British political system gives the majority party much greater power than any party could hope to have in the U.S., but cultural norms make the political debate less moralistic and less absolutist”) he celebrates.

I would argue that’s backwards. The institutions are driving all of this. The British system is both more majoritarian and much less laden with veto points. This makes certain kinds of tactical extremism a much less viable political strategy. If you make promises to your base, your base expects you to deliver. And the median voter fears you’ll deliver. That lends itself to a different kind of political strategy. It also lends itself to a different kind of governing strategy, specifically to that kind of bipartisanship by alternation.