French President Accuses British PM of Violating Assumptions of Public Choice

Well… not quite, but according to this BBC report from yesterday, just before the war in Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac told British Prime Minister Tony Blair that he did not think that Blair and the U.K. had seen their support for U.S. policies and actions in the Middle East returned in-kind. Specifically, Mr. Chirac noted, "'Your position [on Middle East policy] should at least have some use,” and, “You absolutely have to obtain something in exchange for your support.” The British premier doesn’t seem to see things quite the same way: “Tony Blair's spokesman said the remarks were unsurprising but the prime minister did not see relations with the US in terms of ‘pay back’.” I think this brings some interesting challenges and questions to our assumption that politicians are rationally self-interested, with a large part of their utility found in keeping their job. That is, vote-maximizing. One position could be that Tony Blair believes that his policies will prove worthy and eventually garner the greatest number of votes. However, I think it is at least worth considering that politicians derive some form of utility from creating and enacting policies that work (in their eyes, at least). I would venture to guess that in reality this situation features a bit of both. Blair believes this supporting U.S. action is in the best interests of Britain (it’s the right thing to do – period), and also believes that he can get away with it politically, despite the strong anti-war sentiment in Britain (it’s the right thing to do – politically). I suppose it gets a bit more complicated because of the control Mr. Blair and his party have over elections in the British parliamentary system, but I’ll leave it to the Comparative Politics majors to duke it out over that one. Considering a relaxation or restatement of the assumption of vote-maximization is especially important when looking at officials who have already been elected. After all, if we keep the assumption taut, what can Public Choice models tell us about officials who no longer face elections themselves? Lame duck presidents come to mind. The point is this: Must we completely rule out altruistic or moralistic motives in government? While such subjective traits are difficult to evaluate in a formal or mathematical sense under utility optimization, it does not mean such motives do not exist.