Political seas are changing fast

Politics is about to undergo a transformation driven by two basic developments. The first development is the rise of the information society; the second development is the accelerating approach of the global environmental resource crisis. Together, these forces will provide the means and incentive to recreate politics as a flexible, consultative process with profound implications for modern life.

Our political structures are obsolete. In most countries the core political structures were developed in the late 18th, 19th or early 20th centuries when populations were much smaller and dispersed, when representatives could only meet irregularly due to primitive transportation, when communications were much slower, and when the overall knowledge base was much, much less.

These fragile structures failed catastrophically in some countries - perhaps most notably in Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Spain - under the social pressures caused by mass industrial development. The result was the Great Depression and prolonged global war from 1914 to 1945.

Following the end of the long global war, authoritarian rule either persisted or was established in Russia, Eastern Europe, China, South America and elsewhere, there were a number of fake democracies like Japan, Singapore and South Korea. “Democracy” seemed to be generally on the back foot. However, by the start of the 1990s, the Cold War was over, apparently won by the United States of America; a democratic European Union was taking shape; Japan and South Korea were becoming more liberal; and democracy was stirring in South America.

Most of these changes were due to the collapse of communism as a viable political alternative and the rise of the market society as evidenced by globalisation. Underlying both these events was ever accelerating technological change that made the Soviet system obsolete and revolutionised economic relations.

Meanwhile, in the highly developed United States and the continents of Europe, and Australasia, politics had undergone profound change due in large part to the growing role of the media, especially television. From the late 1970s onwards, this change was given ideological form by the erosion of labour-left ideas and the rise of neo-liberal (in Australia, economic rationalist) notions. Few noticed that these changes increasingly privileged the corporate sector (where the money was) and turned politics into just another profession.

The main change revolved around the reformulation of politics as public relations management. Constant polling gave politicians feedback as to how their stances were going, and more and more they shifted to accommodate these polls. They employed specialist image managers, spin-doctors and the like, who focused on process as the content was increasingly defined within narrow neo-liberal ideological parameters.

In Australia, by the 1980s, when staff levels were rising to accommodate the growing complexity of politics - in particular the need to manage communications and the growing knowledge base - political offices were filling up with media studies and economics graduates. Politicians increasingly thought media profile was all-important, and the only meaningful system of organised knowledge was economics.

This situation - politics as perception management within a broad ideology of market relations - has persisted until now. It resulted in a two-tiered political system with only competent Labor premiers running state governments, and the pragmatic Howard-Costello Government in power at the national level. This combination completely out-manoeuvred the remnant federal Parliamentary wing of the Australian Labor Party, while effectively marginalising variations like the National Party of Australia, the Australian Democrats and One Nation.

The centrepiece of this political arrangement was the combination of professional media specialist and pragmatic politician. Together they gutted politics of content and progressively excluded the rank and file party membership and the wider community from effective political participation.

This is all about to change. The growing use of new information technology (such as the Internet) to stimulate a new, issues-based kind of politics is at last getting traction. The core issue in such activity is the capacity to actually understand and debate complex, rapidly evolving issues.

The other factor driving change is the arrival on centre stage of the imminent global crisis, with its two main aspects, global warming and oil depletion. These issues have been around for more than 25 years, but they exploded into the public consciousness in 2006 due to both material events (for example, Hurricane Katrina, extreme weather, petrol price rises) and growing debate due to media exposure (for example, Al Gore’s film).

In Australia, the sudden energy debate (stimulated by Howard’s lurch towards nuclear energy), increasingly strange weather (with resultant economic effects), and issues like the Victorian wind power legislation and Toowoomba water proposals have become hot political topics.

The changes have even reached into that most sacred area of economic life - real estate - with the likelihood of interest rates hikes caused by rising inflation due largely to high petrol and banana prices (both aspects of the global crisis). As low interest rates have been the main pitch of the Howard Government, the political seas are fast changing.

Ultimately, the matter of most relevance here is how fast things are changing. This speed is due to the same two factors - the growing capacity and pervasiveness of information technology, and the realisation that global environmental systems and oil usage are running out of control at an accelerating rate. In both cases, thanks to Moore’s Law in relation to computer processing power and the growing demand of a still expanding global population developing fast (especially in China and India), exponential growth is occurring. And exponential growth means increasing acceleration.

In political terms the result is a cascade of issues that will soon overwhelm existing practices. Political parties and governments, already transforming to accommodate the knowledge rich, highly mediated world, will need to completely change to keep up.

One change will be the decline of the specialist spin-doctor, and the rise of the informed issue specialist, and ultimately, that forgotten creature, the theorist. As issues of real substance emerge, an increasingly well-informed public will not accept the usual glib sound bites from the public relations hacks. Instead, politicians will be forced to go to well-informed sources to be able to debate the issues. Sometimes these sources will be locals who understand the local specifics, which will promote a return to local political connections. Also politicians will increasingly rely on those with appropriate knowledge who already understand the trends and who are thus not thrown by sudden events.

Given that response speed is crucial, time for prolonged consultations will increasingly disappear, and politicians will need to employ people who can stay ahead of the debate by maintaining their knowledge base. This is done through both relevant technology (for example, papers, books, the Internet) and maintaining broad contacts with a number of individuals (former student or activist colleagues).

Pretty much everyone knows the basic rules of public relations management now, and the details are increasingly better taken care of by information technology specialists. This, and the need to maintain staffers and other contacts who actually understand issues - and can thus participate in fast-moving debates - will see the end of the specialist spin doctor who saw all policy as just undifferentiated content and who focused on process.

The new politics will be primarily defined by flexibility through access to knowledge resources. It will return to focusing on the fast-changing real world, as opposed to the internal processes of political power.

There is much good news in the advent of change. Politics has become dull, moribund and largely irrelevant. It will bring well informed, serious-mined people back into politics, and politics will return to what it was supposed to be - open, well-informed debate on the substantive issues of the time - after decades of neglect. The new relevance of political processes will re-legitimate politics and thus government, and there will again be a countervailing force to the rampant dynamic of the market and the corporate sector.

Of course, whether this is enough, or soon enough, to deal properly with the threat of global catastrophe remains to be seen. At least politics - the life-blood of any functional society - will be interesting again.