Does political/ideological tension lead to worse decisions?

[Aimless]

If you collectively task a group of people with making various decisions, is their decision-making influenced by how they relate to each other wrt ideology/politics?

More specifically, do politicians make worse decisions when forced to work with their enemies than they would have otherwise?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Politicians make the worst decisions when they consider those of an opposing party "the enemy" when both have the same goal, but disagree on how to get there. So that sort of tension makes decisions worse. An example, from the US because that's clearest:

Republicans characterized the Health care Bill as some sort of socialist evil plot which included death panels. Causes a bit of tension I'd think. Now this made any reasonable discourse about the Health Care Bill impossible. How are you going to explain to your voters that you compromised on such a Bill? There's nothing left but to completely refrain from making a joint effort to create some sort of sound policy.

I do believe when opposing sides are willing to cooperate the tension could be beneficial because policies will have to be less one-sided and more all-rounded to make it to a consensus.

So, in short, I'd think: it depends.

[LittleFuzzy]

If you collectively task a group of people with making various decisions, is their decision-making influenced by how they relate to each other wrt ideology/politics?

More specifically, do politicians make worse decisions when forced to work with their enemies than they would have otherwise?

Our environment shapes how we think about things, how we approach them, and how we finally act. Most people almost unthinkingly respond to the constraints of whatever framework they happen to be working with. So yes, their decision-making is influenced by how they relate, but it's also influenced simply by the fact that they've been collectively tasked to work with that group of people.

You know that comment "Put 100 politicians who all think A in a room, and they will come out with compromise B"? There's actually a grain of truth to that, because whatever they think or want themselves, they go in with the idea that it's a venue for making compromises.

Whether you think politicians make worse decisions when forced to work with their enemies is probably going to determined by what you think of their personal opinions, and those of the enemies they're working with. If you don't want to see a compromise then you'll probably think they make worse decisions because the response to that environment is *generally* going to be an urge to compromise.

[Lebanese Dragon]

I think the solutin is taking money out as a factor for election. If we can devise a system where money is not a barrier or an enhancement to getting elected, we will break the 2 party system.

[GGT]

If you collectively task a group of people with making various decisions, is their decision-making influenced by how they relate to each other wrt ideology/politics?

More specifically, do politicians make worse decisions when forced to work with their enemies than they would have otherwise?

I'll put this here, for a twist on the topic. Politicians also make decisions with and for friends and allies. Does this kind of thing have the potential to get sticky for diplomacy and foreign aid funding?

JERUSALEM — Chaim Amsellem was certainly not the first Israeli Parliament member to suggest that most ultra-Orthodox men should work rather than receive welfare subsidies for full-time Torah study. But when he did so last month, the nation took notice: He is a rabbi, ultra-Orthodox himself, whose outspokenness ignited a fresh, and fierce, debate about the rapid growth of the ultra-religious in Israel.

“Torah is the most important thing in the world,” Rabbi Amsellem said in an interview. But now more than 60 percent of ultra-Orthodox men in Israel do not work, and he argued that full-time, state-financed study should be reserved for great scholars destined to become rabbis or religious judges.

“Those who are not that way inclined,” he said, “should go out and earn a living.”

In reaction, he was ousted from his own ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, whose leaders vilified him with such venom that he was assigned a bodyguard. The party newspaper printed a special supplement describing Rabbi Amsellem as “Amalek,” the biblical embodiment of all evil.

The intensity of the attacks from his own ranks appeared to underscore their own fears about a growing backlash to the privileges and subsidies long granted to the ultra-religious. The issue is not just the hundreds of millions of dollars doled out annually for seminaries and child allowances. Worry — and anger — is deepening about whether Israel can survive economically if it continues to encourage a culture of not working.

Already, there are an increasing number of programs to prod the ultra-Orthodox to join the work force and to serve out the military duties required of all other Jewish Israelis. But critics say these are not enough: Rabbi Amsellem says what is needed is nothing less than “revolution.”

The ultra-Orthodox, known in Hebrew as haredim, or those in awe of God, make up 10 percent of Israel’s population of 7.5 million, but are increasing rapidly. In addition to the men, more than 50 percent of haredi women do not work, compared with 21 percent among mainstream Jewish women. About 75 percent of Arab women do not work.

But while the Arab fertility rate has been dropping, the haredim still marry young and favor large families with eight children or more. Enrollment in ultra-Orthodox primary schools has increased by more than 50 percent over the past decade. In the haredi system, secular subjects like math and English are barely taught. Many see this situation as unsustainable.

“We have a few years to get our act together,” warned Dan Ben-David, an economist and director of the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, an independent research institute.

“If not, there will be a point of no return.”

Several months ago the center issued a report that caused widespread alarm: If current trends continue, it said, 78 percent of primary school children in Israel by 2040 will be either ultra-Orthodox or Arab.

There are also signs of growing anger among mainstream Israelis: University students, normally a placid bunch, over the last weeks have blocked roads in protest of stipends amounting to $30 million a year for the eternal students of the kollels, which are seminaries for married men. They argued that they should receive similar benefits. The government agreed to limit the stipends, but only in five years.

Officials say that about 56 percent of ultra-Orthodox live below the poverty line. Most are dependent on welfare payments like income support, child allowances or married student stipends.

There are historical reasons most haredim in the modern state of Israel have chosen to remain in the seminaries, unlike their counterparts abroad, who combine Torah study with regular work. When the state was founded in 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister, granted full-time yeshiva students state financing and exemption from army service to refill the ranks of Torah scholarship destroyed in the Holocaust.

Then, there were 400 students, 18 and older, of draftable age. Today, there are about 60,000. To qualify for exemption, the students must be enrolled in full-time study and not do paid work.

The Israeli government and military, along with some private groups, have worked for ways to bring more ultra-Orthodox into the workforce and the army, but have done so slowly and with extreme caution not to offend ultra-religious sensibilities.

More than 2,500 haredim and other religious soldiers have served in a combat battalion set up in the late 1990s for ultra-Orthodox 18-year-olds.

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