Political hypocrisy or hypocrisy in policy refers to any discrepancy between what a political party claims and the practices the party is trying to hide. Modern political debate is often characterized by accusations and counter-accusations of hypocrisy.
The English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
was an outspoken opponent of political hypocrisy, though he considered it inevitable.
David Runciman
David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford, (born 1 March 1967) is an English academic who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, where he is Professor of Politics. From October 2014 to October 2018 he was also Head ...
writes that "Hobbes was at pains not to set the bar for sincerity too high, which would let in the most corrosive forms of hypocrisy through the back door. But he also believed that some forms of hypocrisy, unchecked, would render political life impossible".
The author
Bernard Mandeville
Bernard Mandeville, or Bernard de Mandeville (; 15 November 1670 – 21 January 1733), was an Anglo-Dutch philosopher, political economist and satirist. Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, he lived most of his life in England and used English for ...
goes further, distinguishing two types of hypocrisy: one in which politicians wear a mask of hypocrisy to protect public interests, and the other more sinister hypocrisy to serve the interests of malicious politicians. The distinction between the two, as Mandeville seeks to demonstrate, is difficult to maintain in any political setting.
The philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
devoted much of his writing to creating portraits of innocence, virtue, and integrity as counterpoints to his scathing critique of the corruption, flattery, and hypocrisy that afflicted the social and political life in his view. For the British philosopher
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
, the mask of hypocrisy is intended to conceal or deceive and must always be removed.
Similarly, in his book ''On Compromise'' (dubbed "The Prince for Victorian liberalism" by his biographer), the British politician
John Morley
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor.
Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leani ...
expresses his concerns about the triumph of the political spirit, which he defines as the abandonment of principles and the willingness of politicians of all stripes to dissimulate and compromise in the name of the party. In contrast, the English philosopher
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
, believed that wisdom is striking the correct balance between honesty and deception, so that one's reputation for honesty and their ability to deceive are both preserved.
Definition
The notion of hypocrisy has its origins in the theater. The Greek word () meant 'acting' and the first 'hypocrites' were classical theater actors. As a result, the phrase was first used to describe the theatrical function of appearing to be someone else. As an attempt to separate one's personal behavior from the standards that apply to everyone else, hypocrisy in its pejorative connotation always implies some form of deception. American political journalist
Michael Gerson
Michael John Gerson (May 15, 1964 – November 17, 2022) was an American journalist and speechwriter. He was a neoconservative op-ed columnist for ''The Washington Post'', a Policy Fellow with One Campaign, a visiting fellow with the Center fo ...
says that political hypocrisy is "the conscious use of a mask to fool the public and gain political benefit".
Historical views
The English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
was an outspoken opponent of political hypocrisy, though he considered it inevitable.
David Runciman
David Walter Runciman, 4th Viscount Runciman of Doxford, (born 1 March 1967) is an English academic who teaches politics and history at Cambridge University, where he is Professor of Politics. From October 2014 to October 2018 he was also Head ...
writes that "Hobbes was at pains not to set the bar for sincerity too high, which would let in the most corrosive forms of hypocrisy through the back door. But he also believed that some forms of hypocrisy, unchecked, would render political life impossible".
The author
Bernard Mandeville
Bernard Mandeville, or Bernard de Mandeville (; 15 November 1670 – 21 January 1733), was an Anglo-Dutch philosopher, political economist and satirist. Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, he lived most of his life in England and used English for ...
goes further, distinguishing two types of hypocrisy: one in which politicians wear a mask of hypocrisy to protect public interests, and the other more sinister hypocrisy to serve the interests of malicious politicians. The distinction between the two, as Mandeville seeks to demonstrate, is difficult to maintain in any political setting.
The philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
devoted much of his writing to creating portraits of innocence, virtue, and integrity as counterpoints to his scathing critique of the corruption, flattery, and hypocrisy that afflicted the social and political life in his view. For the British philosopher
Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
, the mask of hypocrisy is intended to conceal or deceive and must always be removed.
Similarly, in his book ''On Compromise'' (dubbed "The Prince for Victorian liberalism" by his biographer), the British politician
John Morley
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn, (24 December 1838 – 23 September 1923) was a British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor.
Initially, a journalist in the North of England and then editor of the newly Liberal-leani ...
expresses his concerns about the triumph of the political spirit, which he defines as the abandonment of principles and the willingness of politicians of all stripes to dissimulate and compromise in the name of the party. In contrast, the English philosopher
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
, believed that wisdom is striking the correct balance between honesty and deception, so that one's reputation for honesty and their ability to deceive are both preserved.
Hypocrisy in democratic politics
In democratic politics, according to
Dhruba Ghosh
Dhruba Ghosh (1957 - 2017) was an Indian classical musician and Sarangi player from Mumbai.
Biography
Dhruba Ghosh was born in 1957 in Mumbai. His father Padma Bhushan Pt Nikhil Ghosh was a famous musician, teacher and writer, known his profici ...
, the need for hypocrisy arises from the structure of political interactions.
David Runciman suggests that hypocrisy is common in politics and particularly unavoidable in liberal democratic democracies: "No one likes it, but everyone is at it."
In her book ''Ordinary Vices'' (1984),
Judith Shklar
Judith Nisse Shklar (September 24, 1928 – September 17, 1992) was a philosopher and political theorist who studied the history of political thought, notably that of the Enlightenment period. She was appointed the John Cowles Professor of Govern ...
downplays hypocrisy, ranking it as an unimportant vice based on its damage to liberal communities in comparison with, for instance, cruelty.
Nevertheless, because hypocrisy is despised and commonplace, Shklar writes that democratic politicians are often tempted to reveal their opponents' double standards: it is easier to dispose of an opponent's character by exposing his hypocrisy than to challenge his political convictions.
Shklar believes that we should be more accepting of hypocrisy and realize that liberal democratic politics can only be sustained with a certain amount of deception and pretense.
Examples
According to the
Middle East Monitor
The Middle East Monitor (MEMO) is a not-for-profit press monitoring organisation and lobbying group that emerged in mid 2009. MEMO is largely focused on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but writes about other issues in the Middle East as well ...
, campaigns to ban Israel from international sporting events have yielded few results. Palestinians have been repeatedly informed by
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
, the international governing body of association football, that "sport and politics don't mix." Nevertheless,
FIFA
FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...
and similar agencies, such as
UEFA
Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...
and
IOC
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
, have joined the West's anti-Russian sanctions in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In contrast,
Fethi Nourine, an Algerian
judoka
is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...
, was suspended for ten years, along with his instructor, for withdrawing from the
2020 Tokyo Olympics
The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July.
Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...
to avoid an Israeli opponent. Other athletes and teams have been fined for showing symbolic sympathy for Palestine, and even fans have been punished for just holding Palestinian flags or chanting for Palestinian freedom. The disparity in the treatment of Syrian and Ukrainian refugees in Europe has been considered an instance of political hypocrisy.
Case study: United States
John Mearsheimer
John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the Univers ...
suggests that the U.S. foreign policy rhetorics of high liberal ideas does not match its actions. Such a chasm, according to Eugenio Lilli, has fueled accusations of U.S. hypocrisy and harmed the U.S. image in Muslim communities, providing fertile ground for extremist organizations to recruit people willing to carry out terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens and assets.
In particular, the constant support for Israel is said to have harmed the U.S. image in the
Greater Middle East
The Greater Middle East, is a political term, introduced in March 2004 in a paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as part of the U.S. administration's preparatory work for the Group of Eight summit of June 2004, denoting a v ...
. As another example, the U.S. official policy of promoting democratic values contradicts the U.S. warm relations with monarchies and dictatorships in the Middle East.
While claiming to be a proponent of the human rights, the U.S. has also turned a blind eye to alleged violations of human rights in countries like South Korea, the Philippines, and Iran's Pahlavi dynasty, which consistently abused human rights.
In another instance, the charges against Iran for its nuclear programme have not been met with any U.S. criticism of Israel which possesses more than two-hundred nuclear warheads.
Human rights
The U.S. has been accused of scant ratification of
human right
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
s treaties despite its official policy of promoting human rights worldwide. In one case, the U.S. has been criticized for refusing to ratify the
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Con ...
and the American opposition to this convention is said to be primarily shaped by political and religious conservatives., The U.S.
has publicly stated that it is opposed to torture, but has been criticized for condoning it in the
School of the Americas
The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), formerly known as the School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense school located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, renamed in the 2001 National Defens ...
. The U.S. has advocated a respect for national sovereignty but has supported internal guerrilla movements and paramilitary organizations, such as the
Contras
The Contras were the various U.S.-backed and funded right-wing rebel groups that were active from 1979 to 1990 in opposition to the Marxist Sandinista Junta of National Reconstruction Government in Nicaragua, which came to power in 1979 fol ...
in
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the cou ...
.
The U.S. has also been accused of denouncing
alleged rights violations in China while overlooking
alleged human rights abuses by Israel.
The
Defense Technical Information Center
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC, pronounced "Dee-tick") is the repository for research and engineering information for the United States Department of Defense (DoD). DTIC's services are available to DoD personnel, federal governm ...
reports that the U.S. did not pursue its human rights policy in South Korea, the Philippines, and
Iran's Pahlavi dynasty, for strategic reasons, exposing the hypocrisy of "human rights diplomacy."
According to the
U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs
The United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, also known as the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a standing committee of the U.S. House of Representatives with jurisdiction over bills and investigations concerning the foreign affairs ...
, trust is the fundamental problem of the U.S. in the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world. Arabs and the rest of the Muslim world, according to this report, have simply spent too much time listening to U.S. rhetoric and then watching the U.S. continually fail to deliver on it. A number of authors have attacked the U.S. attitude towards human rights: Ahmed an-Naim sees the U.S. monitoring of the international human rights as a pretext for its coercive humanitarian intervention in pursuit of its own foreign policy goals.
Francis Boyle
Francis Anthony Boyle (born March 25, 1950) is a human rights lawyer and professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He has served as counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina and has supported the rights of Palesti ...
writes that genocide is perceived legal today when carried out at the request of the U.S. and its allies, such as Israel. According to Boyle, the U.S. government promoted the man responsible for blowing up an Iranian civilian airliner but wrongly sanctioned Libya when a U.S. airliner was attacked.
Democracy
The U.S. foreign policy language extols its worldwide support for the cause of democracy, though Eugenio Lilli suggests that this rhetoric does not match the conduct of U.S., particularly in the Greater Middle East.
In an article called ''Astounding Hypocrisy'', ''
Arab News
''Arab News'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. It is published from Riyadh. The target audiences of the paper, which is published in broadsheet format, are businessmen, executives and diplomats.
At least as of ...
'' writes that Palestinians voted for Hamas in defiance of Israel but the administration of
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
made it clear that the U.S. would not accept the outcome of the free election. In the same speech, however, Bush expressed his hopes for a democratic Iran and a pro-American government there.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Muslim communities largely believed that promoting democracy was used as a pretext by the Bush administration to justify the invasion. Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the search for restricted weapons, the United States claimed, was the first priority for the country; though Bush later openly proclaimed regime change as the objective. The invasion was codenamed "the battle for Iraqi freedom," and American propagandists, according to Mack H Jones, flooded their messaging with homilies about the U.S. desire and intention to liberate the Iraqi people and offer them western-style democracy. The Bush administration's ostensible desire to provide democracy and freedom to the Iraqi people, while continuing to align itself with several repressive nondemocratic regimes around the world including some Middle Eastern client states, is yet another example of American duplicity, according to Jones.
Weapons of mass destruction
''
Al Raya'' writes that the U.S. attack on Iran over its nuclear program is not met with any Western opposition to Israel and its alleged arsenal of more than 200 nuclear warheads.
Sokolski and Gilinsky see this as inconsistent with the U.S. nonproliferation policy, adding that every U.S. president since
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
has pledged, though not publicly, not to press the Jewish state to give up its nuclear weapons as long as it continued to face existential threats in the region. While everyone on the world who has even a slight interest in the subject is aware of the truth, the U.S. government has enacted a regulation—described in the U.S. Energy Department's Classification Bulletin WPN-136 on Foreign Nuclear Capabilities—that threatens government employees with severe punishment if they acknowledge Israel has nuclear weapons.
It has also been suggested that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 had little to do with the destruction of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as officially claimed, but was instead meant to realize the
PNAC goal of establishing a permanent U.S. military presence in the region and installing a puppet state in Iraq.
War on terror
Daryl Glaser suggests that the U.S. war on terrorism has been undermined by its support of the Israeli government, pro-western Arab dictatorships, and authoritarian Islamist groups while invading designated "rogue" states such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Glaser explains the American policies have robbed Arab and Muslim countries of the moral authority they require to effectively combat terrorism. These administrations are unable to explain to their citizens why legitimate grievances (particularly against Israel) should be stifled while the West promotes state and opposition terrorism of its own. Furthermore, Glaser continues, because American policies inflame Arab and Muslim rage, new terrorist groups may emerge from their ranks.
Francis Boyle
Francis Anthony Boyle (born March 25, 1950) is a human rights lawyer and professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He has served as counsel for Bosnia and Herzegovina and has supported the rights of Palesti ...
suggests that the first step towards addressing the terrorism problems created by international terrorist actions directed against American interests around the world, is to implement the Palestinian people's internationally-recognized legal right to self-determination and a state of their own.
When
Abu Nidal organization
The Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) is the most common name for the Palestinian nationalist militant group Fatah – The Revolutionary Council ('' Fatah al-Majles al-Thawry''). The ANO is named after its founder Abu Nidal. It was created by a sp ...
took sole responsibility for the
Rome and Vienna bombings,
President Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
asserted that "these murderers could not carry out their crimes without the sanctuary and support provided by regimes such as
Colonel Qaddafi
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spelling ...
’s in Libya." Reagan then suspended all commercial transactions between the U.S. and Libya and recalled all Americans living or working in Libya. Boyle, however, notes that U.S. oil companies in Libya were exempted from these Reagan's orders.
See also
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Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another or the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. In moral psychology, it is the ...
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Political integrity
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Double standard
A double standard is the application of different sets of principles for situations that are, in principle, the same. It is often used to describe treatment whereby one group is given more latitude than another. A double standard arises when two ...
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Human Rights Record of the U.S.
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Criticism of U.S. foreign policy
*
Unethical human experimentation in the U.S.
References
Sources
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* {{cite book , last1=Lilli , first1=Eugenio , title=New Beginning in US-Muslim Relations: President Obama and the Arab Awakening , date=2016 , publisher=Springer , location=London , isbn=978-1-137-58623-0 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mIlFDAAAQBAJ
Human rights in the United States
United States foreign policy
Criticism of the United States