Opposition

Contexts

It is not self-evident that one should fight for political goals while accepting defeat. Regimes with a loyal opposition are, therefore, an exception. Certainly political dissent and nonviolent opposition were common in Democratic Athens, in Republican Rome, in some republics of medieval Italy, and within European Estate assemblies. But most of that disappeared with the advent of strong monarchic power.

The exception was England. First, the principle of “king in parliament” allowed even conflicts between the Crown and parliament to be understood as competition for the best of one single “body politic.” Second, the decline of monarchic power due to the civil war, the Glorious Revolution, and the specific relations of Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745) with the two first kings of the Hanoverian dynasty led to the emergence of the new role of a “prime minister” with a personal power base in parliament. Patronage and benefits for allies were the central means to create support for the prime minister. Such “government by corruption” made parliament split: One side benefited from “their” prime minister and his policies; the other side advocated different policies and hoped to be part of the spoils system under a new prime minister.

In this situation, Walpole's political adversary Henry St. John 1st Viscount Bolingbroke [Page 1745](1678–1751) presented a first theory of political opposition that was very influential. According to this theory, opposition serves liberty and the common good by continually criticizing selfish or incompetent politics of the government; opposing the government does not mean disloyalty to the Crown or the constitution but only the desire to replace bad policies or politicians with better ones. Actually it has been one of the most important inventions in human history to implement, and to acknowledge, the practice of a legitimate and loyal opposition. Unfortunately, the concept was subsequently narrowed to a form of parliamentary activity and did not encompass phenomena such as political pluralism and separation of power. Moreover, it was put in the context of “ethically better alternatives,” claiming counterfactually a superior moral status for oppositional parties.

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