A Defence of Oxford PPE, Sort Of
Or why one cannot simply blame the Oxford PPE course for Britain’s political troubles.
Motivated by the chaos of Brexit, some pundits have sought a deeper explanation for the current mess: one that goes beyond the flaws and duplicity of individuals; one that finds answers not merely in Britain’s political establishment but in the making of it.
The PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) degree at Oxford seems like a natural place to start.
David Cameron was an Oxford PPE graduate whose arrogance became his and arguably the nation’s downfall. Many government blunders resemble an essay crisis: a politician talks-a-good-talk about a policy they have not properly thought through, and at the last minute blusters and obfuscates as it all goes wrong. People surely shouldn’t feel qualified to go straight into politics just after completing a three year course. Might the short-term thinking the weekly PPE tutorial encourages explain why so many of the long-term problems facing us – climate change, an ageing population, the future of the NHS, antibiotic resistance, automation etc. – don’t appear to be the political priorities they should be? Simply put, if the PPE degree is so good, why do politicians with one seem so incompetent?
And yet…
1) Isn’t the issue more the general homogeneity of the political class when it comes to educational and occupational backgrounds, rather than the PPE degree itself?
Many PPE-ists in politics may be too confident in their own abilities, but this is inevitable. A politician will necessarily feel that they know what’s best for the country and that they have the talent to implement it. Working in politics is at once the most selfless and arrogant of acts.
Besides, if studied seriously, a PPE course is not without purpose. However one might hate rhetoric and spin, being able to persuade and offer reassurance in times of crisis is essential in politics. And yes, digesting lots of complex information in a very short amount of time may foster misplaced confidence that one understands a subject. But, ultimately, it’s not possible for any politician to have universal expertise, so when faced with governing the whole country, knowing how to absorb and think about new information quickly and confidently helps. Both these skills are encouraged by PPE courses, so its graduates can bring valuable qualities to government.
Issues arise when they are the only voices at the table, or when they don’t listen to others. PPE graduates, along with History and Law graduates, are over-represented in Parliament and the Civil Service. Having more people who haven’t gone to university or haven’t done PPE in politics would be beneficial, not because they would be inherently more qualified, but because they would have different qualities. What we need to overcome is the notion that PPE uniquely qualifies you for politics. The greater the range of skills and experiences in politics, the better.
2) It’s all very well complaining about the number of Oxford PPE-ists in politics, but it gets us nowhere unless we ask why that’s the case.
Sure, the old-boys-network is part of it. PPE-ists in politics help other PPE-ists get into politics. The assumption that doing PPE makes someone qualified to run the country is also a factor, though attitudes are shifting against that idea. But a more convincing explanation lies in the culture of politics itself. Working in politics is tense and stressful, affords you very little privacy, does not guarantee long-term job security, is relatively badly-paid for the responsibilities it carries, leads you to being widely despised, and makes you a target for abuse and violence. No wonder maths and science grads tend to avoid it, when they could get a lucrative job in the private sector instead. By contrast, the passion for politics PPE students naturally have means they are prepared to endure its pressures.
Politics will always be unrepresentative, if only because politicians are far more interested in politics than most of the public. And, inevitably, PPE is more likely than other courses to attract that freak politics-enjoying minority.
3) To a certain extent, the burden is on those non-PPE-ists who are interested in politics to stop sniping from the sidelines and step up.
I don’t mean imply that criticism from those not in politics or from those who haven’t studied it is illegitimate. Of course it isn’t. But it is one thing to note someone else’s mistakes; it is quite another to think that you could do a better job, just because you have a different degree. To know that, you need to actually try (despite what some scientists and businessmen like to imagine).
That isn’t intended to be a snide comment. I really do want people who have done things other than PPE in government, for the reasons I gave earlier. And it is perfectly understandable why someone wouldn’t want to enter politics. But, one can only change the nature of politics so far, so if we want people with a different set of backgrounds to enter it, they need to actively choose to do so.
4) The biggest bluffers in politics are unlikely to representative of most Oxford PPE-ists.
Oxford PPE is sometimes used a proxy for Privately Schooled White Men. And indeed, some of its grads are Privately Schooled White Men. But as Sunder Katwala points out, stereotyping all Oxford PPE students as silver-spoon-fed, self-entitled nation-wreckers who should be kept away from governance at all costs risks condemning state-school, ethnic minority and/or working class graduates (they do exist) for their ambition and educational attainment.
Moreover, PPE graduates in politics are only a small minority of PPE graduates overall, and so we should be cautious about inferring problems with the course from their mistakes. Yes, many of our worst politicians are PPE students. Many dictators were doctors, but that isn’t really an indictment of medicine courses.
Obviously, that comparison has limits. Ideally, medicine courses should produce caring souls, but they aren’t specifically designed not to create dictators, while a big part of PPE’s ‘mythology’ is that it helps creates capable politicians. Yet generally, I think people overestimate how formative studying a particular university course is. The Oxford PPE course, by its very nature and prestige, is likely to attract ambitious overconfident politicos so we shouldn’t be surprised that ambitious overconfident politicos come out of it.
So yes, PPE does tend to attract more bluffers than other courses. But the majority of PPE students are hard-working and put in a lot of effort to get onto their course and earn their degree, and most won’t choose to enter politics anyway. Besides, some of your favourite politicians (if there is such a thing) probably have PPE degrees, while some of your least favourite probably don’t, and vice versa.
As a politically diverse set as Tony Benn, David Cameron and Yvette Cooper studied PPE; Theresa May, meanwhile, studied Geography at Oxford; Margaret Thatcher, Chemistry; Boris Johnson, Classics; Michael Gove, English; Nick Clegg, Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge; Gordon Brown and Amber Rudd, History at Edinburgh; David Davis, Molecular Science/Computer Science at Warwick, and Business at LSE; Steve Baker (Chairman of the ERG) Aerospace Engineering at Southampton, and Computation at Oxford; Priti Patel, Economics at the University of Essex; Esther McVey has studied law, radio journalism and corporate governance; Iain Duncan Smith spent a year at an Italian university but did not sit his exams; neither Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Johnson or Nigel Farage went to university. Not all bad politicians are the product of three years of weekly PPE tutorials; nor are all good ones. I admit that emphasising these individual examples is slightly misleading: proportionally, PPE grads are still over-represented in government. But it does nonetheless indicate that the failings of the entire political class cannot be traced back to Oxford PPE. The simple truth is that no degree stops you from being a bluffer or an idiot.
None of this is to deny that there are problems with the Oxford PPE degree which negatively impact politics. I mentioned some huge, possible issues earlier. But it is not all bad, and, moreover, I wonder whether the overwhelming focus on Oxford PPE means we lose sight of the bigger issue: the overall lack of people with different educational and occupational backgrounds in politics, and what – if anything – we can do about it.
One can draw as many (sometimes valid, sometimes superficial) parallels between the PPE course and the crises of government as one wants, but there are other, perhaps more significant issues as well. In their magisterial book, The Blunders of Our Governments, Anthony King and Ivor Crewe highlighted a whole host of systematic problems that need to be addressed in order to improve policy making and implementation. Group-think, a lack of deliberation and consultation, a peripheral parliament, an absence of accountability, panic and spin, asymmetries of expertise, cultural and operational disconnect, and high ministerial turnover.
Some of these problems may partly stem from the dominance of PPE grads in politics, others certainly aren’t helped by it, while for some it’s largely irrelevant. The most significant problem with British politics — in my opinion, its short-termism — probably results more from the 24/7 nature of modern democracy and the demands of elections than some specious link to the Oxford PPE course.
Lastly, it should be emphasised that having one particular educational background does not stop from you from listening to others with different areas of expertise. Perhaps, the problem with today’s politicians is that they do not listen.
A necessary disclosure: I am not an Oxford PPE student or graduate.
