Does America Want Romney's Business Approach to Government

Republican Mitt Romney bases his presidential campaign on his business experience, promising to bring a business approach to national government. Is he on the right track? Do American voters really want their government run like a business? Maybe for the Republican primary, but he faces some problems should he get the nomination.

Conservatives like the idea of government that runs with business-like efficiency, but the general public has some doubts. While most voters see an advantage in a business approach, they also want public input into their government's decisions - even though that slows down the process.

That's the conclusion of a new study published in the latest issue of Public Opinion Quarterly. Assistant Professor Amy Gangl, a political scientist at Union College in Schenectady, New York. gathered responses from 400 adults about their attitudes toward business and government and found that those ideas vary and are frequently changeable.

On the positive side, she noted, many Americans like a business approach to government because they prefer "market mechanism to political process or else simply equate democratic government with free markets." That leads to a belief that government is more likely to be effective, fair and just when run according to a business model.

The problem, though, is that the business model omits some key elements that the American public expects of its government. That includes taking a deliberative approach to decisions and allowing citizens to provide input to their representatives.

Gangl says the problems arise because the business model focuses "primarily on profits and related matters" while "government is expected to provide for a variety of social needs such as national security and public health." Those two approaches, she argues, are at times incompatible.

Another problem is that the business model moves quickly, while the government process is slow. The slowness of government is deliberate, she noted, because democracy allows for the public to have "a voice in the decision-making process. In contrast, businesses have no such obligations."

Gangl also found that these ideas about government and business were not affected by the education level of the people in the study. She attributed that lack of difference to the importance of the topic in today's political debate.

The only factor related to these beliefs was political ideology. Liberals were more likely than conservatives to consider citizen input and "the fairness of the lawmaking process" to be important factors in government.

But even the conservative edge for a pro-business approach dissipates it a candidate gets them to think about the democratic process. Just a little explanation "of why government sometimes works slowly and deliberately in the United States" leads to a drop in support for the business model, Gangl concluded.

What are the implications for today's political candidates? Gangl believes voters would be happier if candidates "spent less time criticizing government and more time setting debates within" the political context.

Good luck on that one.

References

Gangl, Amy (2007). Examining citizens' beliefs that government should run like business. Public Opinion Quarterly, 7(4), 661-670.