Politics is Triple ‘M’ Messy

‘Politics is messy’, political scientist Dr James Weinberg begins.

James is one of the few to turn academic attention to how politicians navigate the ‘quite hostile, antipolitical environment we have today’.

The field of political science has historically centred on understanding problems with popular participation, with politicians held up as part of the problem.

The voter-centric nature of political science is a blind spot James wishes to challenge, making him part of the Silent MP inner circle.

We know that politicians are more likely to suffer with mental health problems than similarly ranked managers in the private sector.

So, to better understand the pressures and stresses of politics, James created the ‘9 stressors’ framework, which the Silent MP talks about a lot.

The framework splits ‘political stress’ into three categories: macro, meso, and micro.

Let’s start with the macro stressors. These are the stressors that arise through the culture of parliamentary work and governance.

Politics is a low trust, high blame environment, he tells the Silent MP (who nods, “no kidding”). Trust, then, is decided by popular press and the media.

Yet, the media is concerned with the politicisation of the personal lives of politicians (resonate with anyone?).

This media-imbued sense of generalised distrust takes its toll, James tells The Silent MP.

‘The majority [of politicians] are trying to do a good job and are good people, but whether the public understands that is beyond their control, [it is] exhausting’.

The second category, meso political stressors, are characterised through the institutional pressures that politicians must deal with.

The Silent MP is all-too familiar with the inadequacies of MP Induction programmes, after years trying to fill the gap, delivering as many as possible globally to those who need it.

Politicians are elected without any sort of job description, person specification, or even any guidance on how to do that job well, James explains.

As well as this, short election windows mean that politicans are limited in their ability to truly make change. To top this off, the electorate are fickle, he says, and the threat of job loss is ever-present.

Rarely in another field would employees be publicly hired and fired on such a short-term basis; we agree, and the inability to plan more than four years at a time undoubtably takes a toll on stress levels.

Finally, micro political stressors concern the individual.

These pressures range from famously long working hours and travel distances, to the lack of control a single MP has on their ‘job sphere’, often dependant on the whims of others.

Moreover, politicians are expected to hit a sweet spot in the eyes of the public in terms of their talent and skill.

They cannot be too skilled, as this conjures up notions of spin and backstabbing, yet, they must simultaneously be skilledenough, to the extent that the public feels comfortable being competently represented.

This balancing act encompasses the ever-precarious nature of the public politician, occupying a position that is always in jeopardy.

James is now gathering more empirical data on the impact of parliamentary stress on mental health, which we hope we tell us even more about these lesser-mentioned issues in politics.

The Silent MP will summarise and relay the evidence as soon as it is ready.

So, if you come across his survey, definitely fill it out.