13 JANUARY 1967, Page 4

Rationality, Reason and Dr Rose

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

By ALAN WATKINS

There is no end to the Captain's enterprise. He now has girl-jugglers stationed at each corner of his platform. They throw up and catch coloured balls so skilfully that one hardly knows whether the applause is for them or for what the candidate is saying. His opponents, whom everybody has for- gotten, are attacking him fiercely in the South Mince Recorder. They accuse him of undemo- cratic methods, but he merely points to the cheer- ing crowds.—.1. B. Morton, 'Vote for Foulenough' in The Best of Beachcomber.

There is, of course, nothing wrong in a writer telling us what he thinks ought to happen. The process becomes objectionable when straight prescriptive statements are buried in sociologese (of which I shall, regrettably, have to give examples). Dr Rose's book is, in essence, a pro- longed tract in favour of market-research men and advertising methods not only in election cam- paigning but in politics generally. No doubt this is a legitimate point of view to promote: but it would have been helpful to be told of it with rather more clarity.

This, however, is by way of preliminary objec- tion. For quite apart from the question whether Dr Rose should have been, clearer about his in- tentions, quite apart also from any question of the morality of advertising methods, there is the initial question : is market research as effective as Dr Rose claims it is? Has he, indeed, miscon- ceived the role which market research in practice plays in political campaigning?

One asks because his book does not start with the facts, but with a theoretical prolegomenon. The sub-title of the book is 'A Study of Cam- paign Rationality': as Dr Rose puts it, 'rational [italics supplied] behaviour is defined as in- ternally consistent action based upon empirically reliable and valid assumptions related to the declared goal of influencing voters.' He justifies this and similar definitions—for there are others —as follows : 'listing and defining the basic fac- tors involved in campaigning,' he writes, 'make explicit points requiring consideration by students of politics and by campaigners too . . . only if such a framework is developed can we begin to analyse and compare campaigns in ways leading to a more adequate explanation of the things that campaigners do and do not do.'

Dr Rose, in short, is constructing a model. This is an activity that is indispensable in pure science, useful in economics; its utility in political analysis is rather more open to question. Stipulative definition is always a risky business : the categories take over and assume a life of their own. Though Dr Rose's definition of

.* INFLUENCING VOTERS. (Faber, 42s.)

rationality looks innocuous enough, it contains three elements—internal consistency, an intention to influence voters and empirically reliable assumptions (incidentally, if an assumption is empirically reliable, does it remain an assump- tion?)—which are rarely if ever present in political campaigning. If one stipulatively defines a rational man as one who stands on his head be- fore breakfast, the conclusion is that few men are rational. Furthermore, Dr Rose nowhere satisfactorily defines, nor could he, where a political campaign begins, and where it ends. He agrees that consideration of a campaign cannot be limited to the short period defined by elec- toral law. Are the actions of a government in the period leading up to a general election to be called 'irrational' if they do not conform to Dr Rose's definition of rationality? Presumably the answer is Yes.

Or take, again, the example given by Dr Rose of the suppressed Labour poster. This depicted a mother bathing a baby and was captioned 'Like mother-love, there are some things a man can't understand.' The poster was rejected by Mr Harold Wilson. Dr Rose twice gives an account of the episode: on the second occasion in a chapter entitled 'Obstacles to Rationality' where he refers scornfully to `Wilson's own in- hibitions about propaganda styles, shared by most Labour politicians.' Is it not possible, how- ever, that here Mr Wilson was being at least as rational as Dr Rose and his admired media-men? (The phrase, I may be permitted to add, is Dr Rose's, and not mine.) Could it not be that the poster was not only degrading but also likely to do the Labour party's electoral prospects harm? But no; the media-men had spoken; or, if they had not actually spoken, they had taken a pic- ture; and that is evidence enough for Dr Rose.

Indeed, it is this tendency to take advertising and market research men at their own under- standably high valuation which is Dr Rose's most striking characteristic. He appears to believe exactly what people tell him—always a hazardous thing for a writer on politics to do. And, if his book has any heroes, they are that group of media-men (including Dr Mark Abrams, Mr Michael Barnes, Mr David Kingsley and Mr Brian Murphy) who assisted the Labour party in the period prior to the 1964 election. For them,

Dr Rose's words almost approach warmth. 'The 1964 Labour publicity group,' he writes, 'demon- strated by its use of market research, by its con-

centration upon the electoral audience and by the consistency with which it emphasised a few messages, that a considerable, even though im- perfect, degree of rationality could be achieved in efforts to influence voters.'

The Conservatives, by contrast, concentrated on trying to communicate policy—in Dr Rose's view, a highly dubious, not to say irrational, undertaking. In particular, poor Sir Alec Doug- las-Home (for whom Dr Rose's stern is almost limitless) persisted in talking about the bomb. As a matter of fact I believe that Dr Rose exag- gerates the difference between the Labour and Conservative campaigns in 1964. Still, after read- ing his account, it comes as a mild shock to realise that the Labour party won the election with a majority of only five. On Dr Rose's assumptions, the Conservatives might have won if Sir Alec had talked rather more about pen- sions and rather less about the bomb.

And yet, somehow, such a conclusion seems an affront to common sense. It is worth inquiring why one should have this feeling. The answer, I believe, lies in a logical failure, by Dr Rose and by some market researchers, to distinguish be- tween a topic and a political issue. From time to time polls are published purporting to show which subjects voters consider most important.

They are invariably the same. Pensions, housing and the cost of living are always at the top of the list; then come roads, education and the economy; while at the bottom we find defence, foreign policy and the Commonwealth.

Really, these polls are very unilluminating. They are, after all, exactly what one would expect, having regard to most people's concerns.

If sex were included in the list it would probably find a place above roads but below the cost of living. It would not follow from this that sex was a better political issue than the roads pro- gramme, though of course it might be. Similarly, it does not follow that merely because voters rank defence below pensions, Sir Alec was neces- sarily wrong to talk about the bomb.

However, Dr Rose's analysis rests not only on a logical confusion between topics and issues but, more seriously, on assumptions about the in- telligence of the electorate, indeed about the nature of parliamentary government, which are patronising and arrogant. He criticises those who are suspicious of market research methods in these terms: 'egoistic information,' he writes, 'is drawn from the client or media man's own in- tuitions about how other people think, or else reflects a naive projection of his own attitudes upon the mass electorate.'

And so the mass electorate, as Dr Rose calls them (as distinct from the group he christens 'the attentive elite,' who read the weeklies and the

books on political science) are to be fed with short, catchy, endlessly repeated slogans; they are to look at pictures rather than to read; even their wants and wishes and preferences are not to be their own, but are to be gathered from questionnaires pre-fabricated in the offices of advertising agents and the headquarters of the great political parties. This may amount to political rationality according to Dr Rose's definition. It is not political reason. And Dr Rose has not yet taken it upon himself to concoct a definition of that.