Political Theory and the Evaluation of Political Conduct

In my book Political Conduct, I argue that we need a deeply contextual analysis of political agency if it is to be appropriately understood and evaluated.1 The argument is essentially that we cannot judge people in politics solely in terms of the states of affairs that result from their ac tions or from the principles upon which they act; rather, we have to have a sophisticated understanding of what was politically possible in that context, where that understanding does not simply insist on various hard structural constraints to action but also factors into the calculation what the agent could bring about, what it would cost to do so, what other ob jectives might have to be forgone, how stable and enduring the achieve ment would be, and how far that would depend on deals and commit ments made that enable the actor to retain office and to be able to see through the implementation and consolidation of the policy over a num ber of years. And in taking those factors into account, we should recog nize that the world of politics is a world of often rather grubby deals, agreements, and compromises that are essential to secure and exercise political power, but which necessarily constrain what can be achieved in office. It is also, albeit more rarely, a world in which politicians can move people, change their minds, and achieve goals that seem impossi ble through a mixture of political skill and the ability to communicate ideals in ways that allow members of the public to grasp their importance and share the aspiration for their achievement. Part of this process is one of taking abstract ideals and values and making them concrete for peo ple—showing them what these ideals demand in practice and what can be achieved through their implementation. On this picture, political pos sibility is a function partly of structural constraints, partly of the con straints that arise from the exigencies and compromises that political of fice necessitates, but also partly of the political will, tenacity, courage, imagination, and flair that politicians bring to bear. This way of thinking about political possibility is not normally ac