16. Some people believe that in order to be effective, political leaders must yield to public opinion and abandon principle for the sake of compromise. Others believe that the most essential quality of an effective leader is the ability to remain consistently committed to particular principles and objectives.
Theoretically, the political system has developed to better reflect the public opinion. Practically in real world, political leaders need to compromise to public opinion at some extent to implement their policy in a practical level. Therefore, it might be reasonable for political elites to be flexible towards the majority of people’s will at the expense of political principles. However, being an effective political leader does not always mean compromising to public opinion. Political leaders should maintain their principles to serve people effectively.
First, sometimes it is not recommendable for political leaders to comply with people’s will. Because public opinion can easily be agitated by rumors or be irresponsible for the results, reflecting it directly in making a decision of national affairs is not a viable option. To set up long term plans such as an economic development, public education systems, and national security, political leaders must consider national issues with unbiased mind. Clearly, since the fundamental duty of politicians is serving their people, political leaders should be cautious to the voice of the public. However, to effectively serve the people, political leaders must have the ability to induce people’s consent to draw macroscopic national interests.
Second, understanding public opinion is not always easy. Public opinions are rarely unified as one. Rather, in most cases, public opinions are divided into several discordant opinions according to individual group’s interests. Political leaders need to choose only a few opinions among many mutually conflicting ideas. In this case, ineffective political leaders take a detour to maintain their supporting rate; they simply follow the opinion of the majority. On the contrary, effective political leaders do not abandon their principles to compromise. They consider national interests first and make an effort to satisfy the needs of each group in a society rather than represent particular major groups.
National leaders can consider public opinion before making an important judgment to maintain a support rating. But the support rating itself is not the primary object political leader must pursue. It is a rather one of the many conditions to be fulfilled in order to pursue long term goals in national affairs.
- 65. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and to disobey and resist unjust laws. 80
- 12. Governments should offer a free university education to any student who has been admitted to a university but who cannot afford the tuition. 90
- 44. Claim: It is no longer possible for a society to regard any living man or woman as a hero.Reason: The reputation of anyone who is subjected to media scrutiny will eventually be diminished. 93
- Highway safety13. In an attempt to improve highway safety, Prunty County last year lowered its speed limit from 55 to 45 miles per hour on all county highways. But this effort has failed: the number of accidents has not decreased, and, based on reports by 60
- 143. No field of study can advance significantly unless it incorporates knowledge and experience from outside that field. 70
Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 353 350
No. of Characters: 1923 1500
No. of Different Words: 188 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.335 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.448 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.789 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 180 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 129 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 88 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.65 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.231 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.5 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.35 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.101 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5