The credibility problem of governments

Many govts think they can recover from serious reverses. In fact, however, they almost never do. In such situations, the most important national task becomes to restore their credibility and authority

A few days ago the economist Ajit Ranade and I were talking about disasters and the responses of the governments to them,  as also the critics’ responses to those responses. 

He described the current global situation in terms of a concept in mathematics, namely, as a ‘convex combination’. 

Such a combination arises in something called ‘affine spaces’. In such spaces, there is no fixed point that can serve as the origin from which you can draw lines. 

Now, very, very roughly, what happens is that every point, or line, in that space has a positive value. Nothing is negative or zero. And, all of them taken together add up to 1.

But let me not take the analogy too far. I think what Ajit meant was that there is some merit in every response and some merit in every criticism of it. Or, as the popular saying goes, “much might be said on both sides”. 

All taken together they add up the current mess. Everyone is right which, more-or-less, is what a convex combination is. 

Thus, all governments made mistakes and the people also made mistakes. The scientists also made mistakes. The epidemiologists also made mistakes. And so on. 

You name a category, all have what mathematicians call non-negative culpability. 

Or, to distort a well-known saying “is hamaam mein hum sab thode-thode nangay hain”. 

The headless chicken
 

But there is another way of describing the current situation. It is almost as apt as the convex combination thing. 

Ajit’s description brought back a 50-year-old memory of a class at the Delhi School of Economics where the professor told us the story of the headless chicken. I can’t recall why, but he must have been illustrating some incomprehensible theorem in economic theory. 

The story is that in 1945, an American chicken called Mike, whose head had been cut off, managed to live for 18 months. Indeed, it carried on as if nothing had happened. 

What had happened was that the knife had missed the jugular vein of the chicken so that blood kept on going to the remaining parts of its body. Bits of the brain thus kept functioning as did its legs and other organs. 

It seems an annual ‘Mike the Chicken Day’ is still observed in that town. I forget which one. 

Relevance to governments
 

I am recalling this ridiculous but true story — as also the more arcane convex combination concept — because governments all over the world, when they run completely out of luck, or show extreme incompetence, have this problem. 

They become victims of either one of the two phenomena I have mentioned above or of both.   

Overall, as a result, their credibility becomes zero — what can you do with a headless chicken except look it wonderingly — and they just stumble about. 

Such governments are also called lame duck governments. The term is used to denote a loss of credibility, influence and power. 

Many governments think they can recover from the reverses. In fact, however, they almost never do. It’s almost a given that they can’t. 

In such situations, the most important national task becomes to restore the credibility and authority of governments. 

To cite just one example, in 1940 in Britain, after Hitler had completely destroyed the credibility of Neville Chamberlain who had promised the world that there would be no war, the British political class opted for a national government, which had the participation of all political parties. The purpose was to restore credibility. They chose Winston Churchill to lead the government. 

That change of leadership didn’t stop Hitler because Churchill was just a windbag. But the change did give new hope to the people because they had concluded that a change at the top was necessary. The MPs caught their mood. 

The rest, as they say, is history.