Political Compromise
In international politics, the compromises most often discussed are usually regarded as nefarious deals with dictators, such as Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. Margalit calls these “rotten compromises.” In democratic politics, compromises are necessary if any progress is to be made. Politicians campaign standing on principle and demonizing their opponents, which is to be expected in a robust democracy. But then they have to be able to adjust their principles and work with their opponents if they are to govern at all. This tension is one of the great challenges of contemporary democracy and has become more difficult in the era of the permanent campaign, as Gutmann and Thompson show. The problem of political compromise in general is an important subject in political ethics.
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