3.3.9   Economic Pressures on Governments and Politicians

(This is an archived page, from the Patterns of Power Edition 3 book.  Current versions are at book contents).

Politicians have an incentive to help an economy to run well because that makes them popular and therefore increases their chances of remaining in power.  There are two economic aspects to this incentive:

·     It constitutes pressure on politicians to perform well.  People and organisations can exploit a government’s need for a healthy economy (3.3.9.1). 

·     It also constitutes pressure on politicians to put a spin on their communications with the population.  They are helped in this by the difficulty of assigning responsibility for the performance of the economy (3.3.9.2).