Lack of Support for Compromise-based Solutions

3. Factors That Make Conflict Intractable

This introductory article was written by ChatGPT at the direction of Heidi Burgess, who reviewed, edited, and approved the final content.
For more information

Compromise is one of the basic ways democratic societies handle deep disagreement. In a pluralistic society, people will inevitably disagree about values, priorities, risks, costs, rights, and responsibilities. Since no side can legitimately expect to get everything it wants all of the time, democratic problem solving depends on the willingness of opposing groups to accept partial victories, imperfect solutions, and negotiated tradeoffs. When compromise is treated as betrayal, democratic institutions lose one of their most important tools for turning conflict into workable public policy.

In today's hyper-polarized political environment, however, compromise is often seen as "selling out" one's own side. Political leaders may fear being attacked by activists, media personalities, donors, or primary-election challengers if they are seen as giving anything to the opposition. This fear is not entirely imaginary. Research summarized in Rejecting Compromise finds that many legislators believe primary voters will punish them for supporting compromise bills, and that these fears can shape their behavior. However, the evidence is more complicated than the simple claim that voters always punish compromise. Another chapter from the same research project concludes that most voters, including many primary voters, often reward compromise, although partisans who strongly oppose a specific compromise may punish legislators who support it.

Public opinion also shows this tension. Americans often say they want leaders who are willing to work across party lines. Gallup reported in 2025 that Americans were about twice as likely to say that they prefer leaders in Washington who compromise to get things done, in comparison to leaders who stick firmly to their beliefs, even if little gets done. Pew Research Center similarly found that majorities of both parties say it is important for elected officials in the other party to be willing to compromise. But people are often less enthusiastic when compromise requires their own side to give up something important. This creates a political trap: citizens may favor compromise in the abstract, but still punish particular compromises when they involve painful concessions.

There are also good reasons to be cautious about compromise. Not all compromises are constructive or legitimate. Compromises that sacrifice basic rights, excuse corruption, ignore serious harms, or split the difference between a well-supported claim and a false one may make conflicts worse. The goal is not compromise for its own sake. Rather, the goal is principled compromise: agreements that respect core democratic norms, reduce harm, solve real problems, and leave room for continued disagreement and future revision. Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson's work on the mindsets of political compromise emphasizes that democratic compromise requires both a willingness to give ground and a continued commitment to important principles.

A lack of support for compromise-based solutions turns conflicts into zero-sum struggles in which each side defines success as defeating the other side, rather than solving shared problems. This encourages legislative gridlock, performative politics, government shutdowns, and policy reversals whenever power changes hands. It also makes citizens more cynical, because democratic institutions appear unable to address urgent problems such as immigration, health care, public debt, climate change, housing affordability, crime, and education. Constructive conflict handling requires rebuilding respect for compromise as a disciplined form of democratic problem solving. That means distinguishing healthy compromise from surrender, rewarding leaders who negotiate responsibly, and helping citizens see that, in a diverse democracy, getting part of what one wants is often the only legitimate alternative to endless escalation.

We should also note here, however, that compromise in often an inferior approach to collaboration (when that is possible) which potentially will yield win-win solutions where no one has to give up anything, or at least not as much, as they would have to give up with compromise. As first pointed out by Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann, people in conflict tend to have three major concerns: whether they will get what they want, how the conflict will affect the relationship with "the other," and how much it is going to cost to win or lose. Generally, people have a tendency to balance those concerns by adopting one of five conflict styles--avoiding, competing, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. Each of these styles has its benefits and its costs. But, as we wrote in the BI essay on conflict styles,

When people are concerned about getting their own needs met and are concerned with the relationship, plus they have time and patience, they may try collaboration. Here they take the time to really understand the interests and needs of the other side, make sure the other side understands their's, and then they work together to craft a solution that meets both sides' needs as fully as possible, ideally, without making concessions. When one takes the time to do this, one's needs are usually met more fully than they are with any of the other conflict styles (with the possible exception of competing), but this approach doesn't have the relationship downsides of competing, as collaboration usually strengthens relationships.

But collaboration is difficult, and it takes a lot of time. Short of that, increasing support for compromise is a good way to go.

—————————

This page was created by ChatGPT in response to this prompt. It was then reviewed, edited, supplemented and approved by Heidi Burgess. More information about how and why we are using AI in this way, and about the growing number of ways in which Beyond Intractability is using ChatGPT, Claude and other AI systems to generate content and build out the BI system, is available on our BI/AI Overview Page.