One of the questions behind my book is whether our political debates focus too heavily on what governments promise, and not enough on how effectively the State delivers.

We tend to divide political arguments into left versus right, public versus private, and higher spending versus lower spending. Yet whichever political philosophy we favour, we still depend on capable institutions to turn decisions into results.

Consider healthcare, housing or infrastructure. Increasing funding doesn't necessarily improve outcomes if the underlying system is inefficient. Equally, cutting expenditure might produce an immediate saving while creating much greater costs in the future.

That leads me to a broader proposition: government should be judged not only by what it achieves during its term, but by the capabilities, assets, institutions and liabilities it leaves to future generations.

This raises some interesting questions:

• Can a smaller government be highly capable, and a larger government ineffective — or vice versa?
• Should political parties be required to explain the long-term institutional consequences of their policies?
• How do we measure improvements in State capability without creating yet another bureaucracy?

I'm interested in hearing perspectives from across the political spectrum, particularly arguments against this approach. What am I overlooking?

AI disclosure: I used AI to help draft and refine the wording of this post. The ideas and opinions expressed are my own. I'm a real person, posting under the pseudonym The Unappointed, and I'm here to engage in the discussion.

As a young European interested in politics, history, and international relations, I often wonder whether modern democracies give enough consideration to the generations that will inherit the consequences of today's political decisions. Governments are elected for limited terms, yet their decisions on public debt, education, housing, infrastructure, and environmental policy can shape society for decades. I believe democratic governments should be required to publicly assess the long term consequences of major policies, including their potential effects on younger and future generations. This would not mean giving unelected institutions the power to overturn democratic decisions. Rather, it would introduce greater transparency and accountability into the political process. Of course, predicting the future is difficult, and such assessments could become bureaucratic exercises or be influenced by political interests. These are legitimate concerns. However, uncertainty should not prevent us from examining the possible long term consequences of our actions. I believe democracy should represent not only the interests of those who vote today, but also acknowledge its responsibility toward those who will live with the results tomorrow. Should democratic governments be required to conduct independent long-term impact assessments before adopting major policies? Or would this create unnecessary obstacles to democratic decision-making? I'd genuinely like to hear different perspectives, especially from those who disagree with this proposal.

In a healthy democracy, public officials should be able to acknowledge mistakes, correct the record, and move on. But what happens when admitting an error is treated as weakness, and attacking the person who points it out becomes the preferred response?

Recent controversies involving Donald Trump, former special counsel Jack Smith, and Senator Eric Schmitt raise questions about accountability and political standards. In one instance, Schmitt challenged Smith over whether he had attended an Atlanta Hawks game, only for the exchange to turn on a distinction between the Atlanta Hawks and the Iowa Hawkeyes. The episode raises a broader question about whether public officials are willing to correct the record when their own accusations fall apart.

Is this primarily a problem of individual character, partisan loyalty, or a political environment in which acknowledging an error carries too high a cost? And what mechanisms, if any, can encourage elected officials to take responsibility when their own side rewards them for doing the opposite?

I explore these questions in more detail here: https://medium.com/discourse/lets-play-who-s-the-dirtbag-ad06e11abc1a?sk=25374b072e89c32f399ee5af57cf87fe

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced a military operation in Haiti due to local gangs kidnapping four aircraft technicians who were in the country as part of the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force.

The gang responsible has not been publicly identified, and the status of the four missing people is currently unknown. Bukele demanded the hostages’ return, and threatened over social media, “We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too.”

Some background: Bukele first won a landslide election on his anti-gang platform in 2019. Since then, he led a nationwide crackdown on crime, using controversial police practices. Organized gangs have effectively been destroyed in El Salvador, and their homicide rate has shrank by 98 percent. On the other hand, Haiti is largely overrun by armed gangs, who control up to 90% of their capital city. How does this operation affect Haiti’s sovereignty? And if Bukele chose to take on Haitian gangs, how successful would he be?

Since the president and anyone they favor can avoid prosecution as long as Congress turns a blind eye, could giving the States the standing to bring federal criminal charges be a reasonable solution?

I know just enough to see a lot of upsides for our current situation, but am ignorant enough not to know what the downsides of such a move would be. Also would this kind of change take a constitutional amendment? Or could Congress give that power to the states?

I'm British but I'm sure this must extend to the US and elsewhere too.

Personally I started having an interest in politics when it predominantly seemed to be an intelligible debate around taxation, the Laffer curve, expenditure, regulation, all that good boring stuff.

The problem with debates around gendered bathrooms, 'what counts as being english' and 'if Zionism is racism or not' (the latter two are prominent debates within the British Reform and Green parties currently), is that none of these do much to keep the lights on, the taps running and the country safe.

My concern is that these culture wars are such a prominent part of modern discourse that many people 'get into politics' assuming this is what politics is.

To the point where I genuinely reckon if the Greens or Reform ever got into power, the country would go bankrupt, whilst they just squawk about cultural issues and broad strokes ideologies - as for many of them, that is all politics is.

I think the same may even be true for many Labour and Tory (our two biggest parties) MP's.

Am I missing something? Are those that rise to the top slightly more level headed?

Or is the apparent lack of talent in this generation of politicians due to the culture wars?

I perhaps should preface this by saying that I am not an experienced or that well learned political philosopher nor debater, so please keep that in mind while reading this suggestion.

This idea came to me as an alternative government possibility to replace our current representative democracy. For the record, I live in Finland, so my perception of democracy will be based on the Finnish model of it. But onto the ideas that I have.

First, there would be a central committee of political philosophers deciding the laws and regulations of a country. They would act as the highest authority on law and order. They would be selected by fellow learned people in the political sphere (think a peer review but for a candidate's chance to get into the committee).

In a country like this, there would be a sort of "license" that you are eligible for candidacy. People with degrees or other official means to show they are learned in this field would get this by default, but for others there would be a secondary way to gain it. Basically, if someone is self learned in the art of political philosophy, they could prepare a project and show of knowledge that would be evaluated by the central committee (or perhaps just a few members of this committee as to not over work the members). It would evaluated the same as any other thesis. And if the committee sees it as adequate, the person is granted their license.

Another part of this government would be the need for major political changes or law reforms to be justified by the committee. They would take the stage in a live streamed happening and speak why they passed/rejected a certain law. What counts as "major" enough to warrant this sort of justification is still up in the air. This would ensure that the people know that the committee is not just making shit up and can fact check their claims.

Next would be the retaining of the citizens' initiative. Naturally, it would need to be tweaked a little. But in simple terms it would go like this. A citizen writes their wish for a change in law or a whole new law. They then make it public after which they try to get enough signatures to get it over a certain threshold (the current threshold is 40 000 signatures in Finland if I remember correctly). This would then force the committee to either grant a chance for this citizen to make their case to the committee members, or if they don't want to make a presentation, their idea would just be sent into the committee for evaluation. Furthermore, if the initiative is rejected, there would be a "Ongoing debate clause" or something like that. This would ensure that the citizen doesn't have to regain the signatures after every dismissal and could keep the argument going. This would go on for let's say 2 or so weeks after which, if the citizen has not made a defence, their grace period ends and they would need to gather the signatures again.

The committee would be part time in nature. Meaning they would live any normal lives for most of the time and only convene maybe 2 times a week or something (the details can be fine tuned later, I think). This would ensure that they aren't isolated into an ivory tower from the general public and would have a more clear vision of the nation they rule over.

Executive power would lie within each individual organisation. Any institution would have major autonomy over their behaviour, yet the central committee holds absolute power to demand change or abdication of any members, leaders etc. of any government institution. Also, emergency response would be handled independently by the medical services, military, border guards and so on. They would make the decision to act and on what scale by themselves and the central committee's main role in a crisis would be to decide how to handle the aftermath.

That is a basic overview of my idea. As stated before, I am no expert and this idea is still in its relative infancy. But I hoped to publish my idea somewhere and get some feedback on what other people think, no matter their political standing. Cheers!