Can You Have Long-Term Strategic Thinking in a Democracy?

04/02/2025
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Lara Taber
Associate, Arup

We had Sir John Armitt taking us through his amazing career this week and he posed a challenge that I would like to put through to the vocL community: can you have long term strategic thinking in a democracy?

Responses

Chris Wainwright (vocL Voice)
Finance Director

Democracies and long-term strategy can be mis-aligned due to the short-term nature of election cycles, with opinions changing often. This can lead to disagreements and slow decisions which hinders the long-term good. Solutions include cooperation between political parties, establishing independent institutions, educating the public on the importance of long-term strategies, developing and enshrining policies in law. These elements can align short-term goals with long-term interests.

Amarysia Aujla (ELP Member)
Business Development Executive at Shakespeare Martineau

In an increasingly political world, it appears that short term rewards or ‘easy’ political wins are favoured over long term strategic thinking. However, long term thinking should arguably play a bigger role in engaging the public, fostering the trust of future generations and move society forward. However, whether you can have long term thinking is different to whether we should have it. Media noise, social media commentary and cancel culture all create immediate pressure for leaders and decision makers, which perhaps over recent times have appeared to play a bigger role in what path society will take.

Fran Grossman (ELP Member)
Medical Negligence Solicitor at Lime Solicitors

It depends – in authoritarian systems like China, long-term goals are easier to plan and execute without distractions from electoral cycles or leadership changes. In contrast, democracies like the UK often struggle with long-term strategies as the government’s focus is on remaining in power and short term goals to win elections, delaying investments in future plans. Effective democratic leaders must be able to present a vision of their goals that divided parties will all support. Therefore, if this is achieved, democracies can still achieve effective long-term strategic thinking.

Andrew Gall (vocL Voice)
Head of Savings & Economics, Building Societies Association

You can, if you can convince voters that you have a long-term vision and plan that will make their lives, and the lives of those they care about, better. To get this we need leaders to share that vision, to build consensus between Government, business and civil society, and to develop trusted institutions that can deliver it. Today, we need a convincing strategy to tackle the long-term challenges we face, as opposed to the deceptively easy answers peddled by populists.

Fhaheen Khan (vocL Voice)
Senior Economist, Make UK

It’s the responsibility of the people to choose the leaders that best represent their goals, which is often an improvement in quality of life. Yes, the leaders change frequently, but if the people’s values remain consistent, then long-term goals can be achieved. Albeit, the path, or strategies, those leaders employ can change. It is important to ensure that the participants of a nation understand their role in achieving long-term goals, in other words, through voting and interacting with Government at every opportunity.

Rory Daniels (ELP Member)
Senior Programme Manager for Emerging Technologies

You can absolutely have long term strategic thinking in a democracy. First, the concepts of type of rule (democracy, authoritarianism…) and duration of strategic thinking may be correlated, however this doesn’t have to be strong. For example, baking long term thinking into the culture or procedures of democratic institutions should go some way to ensuring these sorts of outcomes: countries such as Norway (with their sovereign wealth fund) and South Korea have done this well. Secondly, both types of rule feature a single leader with the power (in theory) to encourage or mandate such an approach. While there are more checks and balances in a democratic system, these could enhance the quality of the strategic thinking rather than hinder or block it. This is dependent upon a wide range of other factors, including the influence of the media, corporations, and the third sector. In summary, it is perfectly possible to have long term strategic thinking in a democracy.

Glenn Bills (vocL Voice)
Business Development Director, Gripple

Much depends on the driving forces of society, or whatever makes up the democracy, at the time. In increasingly polarised political times, this can unfortunately vary massively. That said, many core pillars are consistent – the drive for economic prosperity, relationships with long term trading partners and focus on welfare of people are generally stable, if sometimes slightly nuanced, allowing for long term strategic thinking. In a business sense, employee ownership is one approach to ensuring that long term strategic thinking is aligned with, and contributed to by, a full range of stakeholders. This guarantees that the golden thread of responsibility runs through all strategic thinking, direction and decision making.

Cathrine Scowcroft (vocL Voice)
Head of Commercial Finance for Renewables, Certas Energy UK Limited

There are challenges with having long term strategy in a democracy as although in society we agree on social and economic challenges that need a solution, the roadmap to finding solutions often varies and takes many ineffective detours with governments focusing on short term solutions and “quick wins”, gaining and trying to maintain popularity due to having maximum terms of 5 years until the next election. We all acknowledge that we need to mitigate environmental damage, reduce the impact of the continuing cost of living crisis, all whilst there is a frequent risk of war, conflict and polarising politics abroad. These fundamental issues with society, that the government work to improve form part of a party’s policy when running for power and steps are consistently made to improve the scenarios, however, due to the short-term nature of our democracy improvements to the social and economic causes, and long term solutions are often over looked unless the requirement is underpinned by the values of society, and there is constant focus and attention on the progress made.

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