it depends. But I would argue that what it depends on is probably different from what most people believe is important.
When I was younger, I thought about this issue from a partisan perspective. A divided government is better when the party I oppose is in office (or so I thought), and a unified government is better when the party I like is in office. I think this is a fairly widely held view, especially among highly educated voters. But now I think this is wrong.
I have come to the view that the deciding factor is not “which party wins the presidency,” but rather that the optimal outcome depends on the answer to this question.
Is this an era of relatively good governance or an era of relatively bad governance?
A stronger central government may be a good thing if we are in an era where governments are engaging in beneficial reforms such as deregulation, privatization, freer trade, fiscal responsibility, and tax reform (I emphasizes that this may be the case). If we were to live in the following times, socialism When there is nationalism, more government power is usually a bad thing.
Since most of the readers of this blog live in the United States, I will not use an American example to illustrate this point. It is very difficult to look beyond our own personal political biases. Instead, look across the pond and reflect on Britain’s recent history.
They had three relatively long periods of near-one-party rule. The Conservatives were in power from 1979 to 1997, then Labor was in power from 1997 to 2010, and then again until elections this summer. What do we notice about these times?
1. Governments often do better in the early stages. They come into office with a plan to correct the mistakes of the previous government and often do something useful early in their term. If that happens, we will run out of gas and the quality of policymaking will deteriorate.
2. When the world zeitgeist is moving in a “neoliberal” direction (e.g. until 2007), governments tend to make better policy decisions, and when the world is moving in an illiberal direction. tends to result in less effective policy making.
I’m never going to tell people how to vote, and in fact, in a presidential year, you can never know for sure whether your vote will lead to a unified government or a divided government. (In the midterm elections, voters know that.) But one thing to consider may be whether we are in an era of good governance or an era of bad governance. Is the political zeitgeist moving in the direction of balanced budgets and supply-side reform, or in the opposite direction? How much trust do you have in America’s policy-making process today?
One last point. I don’t rule out the possibility that a divided government could be more good than bad. It mainly depends on how much “activism” you like. My own views are somewhat hostile to government activism, so my bias is toward divided government. This post is just an attempt to explain when each outcome occurs. comparatively More importantly, it’s not necessarily about which one is best in an absolute sense. If I support active government, I might lean toward the view that a unified government is usually best. Still, I think people tend to underestimate the importance of the zeitgeist, of whether we’re in an era of relatively good governance or an era of relatively bad governance.
