Political debates produce more slogans and partisan attacks than honest deliberation.
Policy making is often based more on appearances than the public interest. T hat these problems are caused by the structure of legislative elections. B ecause in studying political conflict outside the legislative arena, the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program has found that two facets of representation often affect the outcome. First, if each representative speaks for a group of people who share a clear set of interests, he or she is usually motivated to meet that group's objectives. Typically, the most practical way to achieve those goals is to deal realistically with the issues and with the other representatives involved.