Talk:Political capital

This is a very odd article that doesn't seem to cite any sources.67.183.153.20 03:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Is there a scale or something to measure ploicital capital? FuzzyCuteness (talk) 22:29, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

What is the difference between political will and political capital? Niel.Bowerman (talk) 00:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

This article is pathetic. Political capital refers to goodwill that can later be spent to achieve desired ends. The article doesn't say anything even close to that.71.179.4.82 (talk) 21:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

This article needs to be improved. I am re-working the lede section and have deleted the line, "Political capital is the sentiment that a politician has a legitimate political mandate to enact policy in the eyes of the voting public." This sentence linked to "mandate," another WP article...but this characterization of political capital is not complete or entirely accurate. Graphemie (talk) 23:19, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Revising dynamics I have a few thoughts about the section on dynamics. First, I am not sure this section warrants its own heading. Most of this information is addressed by the lede section now and/or could be incorporated there. Second, the following claims are unsourced and need to be supported--at least in some form--with evidence: 1) the assertion detailing how political capital is earned, 2)that it must be spent or it will expire, 3) that political capital is highest during the honeymoon phase, 4) that other politicians are able to ride the coattails of those with political capital. Third, a stronger connection needs to be made between the 2004 article about President Bush's political capital. It is unclear how it relates to the general acquisition/expiration of political capital and is basically just tagged on there without explanation.

It may also be useful to add a brief section that considers whether political capital is the sole province of those in office or whether it can also be distributed amongst the public. For instance, Schugurensky conceptualizes political capital as the "capacity to influence political decisions." Thoughts? Graphemie (talk) 19:23, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Is political capital real?
This article makes political capital sound like a real thing. But it seems to me that it's only debatably real. Is political goodwill something that you gain by doing popular things and lose when asking people to trust you? That sounds like a theory, or a model, of what politics is like. But it's not obviously how politics actually works. Maybe you gain the power to command more goodwill by asking for it, which suggests that the capital model is misleading. You don't, after all, gain more money automatically by spending it. Or maybe you lose political goodwill by not doing anything, which suggests that the "spending" metaphor implied in political capital is also misleading: it's not something you lose by using, in the fashion of money or capital. All of this is to say: the article makes it sound like the capital model tracks something uncontroversially real in politics, when that's not obvious at all. It should either cite some secondary or tertiary source that reflects on the uncontroversial nature of the political capital model (if that's actually the case), or it should flag that the capital model of political goodwill is contentious.50.191.21.222 (talk) 00:22, 24 March 2017 (UTC)


 * it is 'real' as a concept is. it isnt tangible. NotQualified (talk) 10:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Improving this article
Hello,

I will be making some tweaks and improvements to this article over the next week. My goal is to be able to remove the banner on the page asking for additional citations, as well as address questions raised previously on the Talk page and bring in other examples of and research about political capital. BaileyPoland (talk) 17:02, 14 September 2018 (UTC)


 * i wont remove this because these are useful changes but someone else will have to volunteer to do this given your absence NotQualified (talk) 10:18, 22 April 2024 (UTC)