What do politicians need to teach us?
It’s puzzled the Silent MP that despite the political experience being so important to shaping our democratic experience, we do not yet truly understand what it feels like to be a politician. This human experience is, essentially, the driver that shapes the quality of work our politicians do.
While there are attempts from both political scientists and behavioural psychologists to understand it, when we turn to academia to broaden our insights into the political experience we are left wanting more. This is mostly because political science and psychology function in very different ways, and often miss each other’s theoretical blind spots. The Silent MP had a chat with Professor of Work Psychology, Jo Sylvester, to find out more.
Jo’s research argues, somewhat surprisingly, that Industrial/Organisational (I/O) psychologists have paid little attention to political work; instead focusing on ‘politics’ in the sense of individuals acting politically. In her recent paper ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Politics and Politicians at Work’, Jo asks whether a better understanding of political activity in the workplace might be gained by studying politicians and political environments.
Politics is often associated with the ‘dark side’ of workplace behaviour in psychological studies, and has been described within the field as inherently divisive and stressful, as well as a cause of dissent and reduced performance. Political activity has historically been viewed as something that needs to be minimised or removed in order to maximise organisational functioning. Yet, according to Jo, this is a fatal gap in the literature. The Silent MP agrees.
Of course politicians act politically.
For politicians, politics is not an unacceptable or deviant activity, it is not a cause of dissent or reduced performance; politics is just work.
Political scientists, on the other hand, are often criticised for taking an overly quantitative, macro view of the political experience, emphasising on outcomes. Jo explains to The Silent MP, ‘for political scientists, the focus is very much on data that is publicly available, which is not from the individuals themselves’.
It is this preference for outcomes that places political scientists on one end of the scale. The other end would be occupied by political anthropologists who study politics in a deeply qualitative fashion; they study, in a sense, politics through the eyes of the politician, which is less about outcomes and more about people.
For Jo, psychology occupies the middle ground between political science and anthropology, and it attempts to balance the priorities of the two.
Yet, perceptions of politicking and political skill are something that we must work to change when discussing politicians. This is where politicians have a lot to teach us and need to teach us. As opposed to studying political behaviour in order to improve the workplace, psychologists must be able to study political behaviour in order to improve the political experience itself.
As Jo says, our politicians are one of the most important groups of workers, and their performance affects the well-being and economic security of people across the world. It is crucial that the importance of truly understanding the political experience is fully represented across each academic field.
