Manipulating social tensions: Collibration as an alternative mode of government intervention

It is widely recognised that a number of segments of social life in advanced industrial societies are 'self-policing' without the constant intervention of government, because one actor can only succeed at the expense of one or more other actors, whose interest therefore lies in keeping the first in check. Economic doctrines of the market, constitutional doctrines of checks and balances, and the practices of industrial relations, all enshrine this understanding. It is not so widely appreciated, however, that governments frequently achieve policy aims by intervening in such self-balancing processes, so as to aid one combatant or handicap another, and since this quite commonplace policy instrument does not appear to have a generic name, the author calls it collibration. The paper gives a large number of illustrations of this technique in use, in the traditional arenas just mentioned, and suggests that in the contemporary politics of policy and issue networking, and in the more egalitarian culture the advanced industrial societies may be entering, the advantages of collibration over conventional instruments will become apparent.