Adversarial Process - Adversarial Politics

Adversarial Politics

The use of a voting system to choose candidates to hold political and military power is often necessarily adversarial. This process requires each candidate to convince voters that they are more trustworthy in the expected future circumstances, than their opponent.

Adversarial politics takes place when one party (usually not in government) takes the opposite (or at least a different) opinion to that of the other (usually the government) even when they may personally agree with what the government is trying to do.

Those opposed to adversarial politics believe that politicians should state what they actually think rather than following the 'party line'. They consider adversarial politics to be cynical and intolerant, with ‘winning’ the driving principle versus attempting to establish the truth. Politicians captivated by the ‘struggle for victory’ corrupt the ideals that brought them into politics in the first place.

Adversarial politics is often blamed for turning the electorate away from politics and their right to participate in the democratic process of their country through voting at elections. In the United Kingdom, many voters consider 'Prime Minister's Questions', a weekly ritual involving the prime minister and the leader of Her Majesty’s opposition confronting each other in the House of Commons, to be a sad and embarrassing relic from the past.

In the US, huge fundraising for presidential elections increasingly results in campaigns focused on personalities versus honest debate, and trading insults versus addressing substantive issues.