Conviction politics refers to the practice of campaigning based on a politician's own fundamental values or ideas, rather than attempting to represent an existing consensus or simply take positions that are popular in polls.
On the right, the term has been adopted by politicians like Margaret Thatcher, who declared "I am not a consensus politician. I am a conviction politician" upon assuming leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975. On the left, it was vocally supported by Paul Wellstone, whose Wellstone Action now trains future politicians in his theory of conviction politics.
Read more about Conviction Politics: Theory, History, Criticisms
Famous quotes containing the words conviction and/or politics:
“If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I’d have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I haven’t even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Political organizations have slowly substituted themselves for the Churches as the places for believing practices.... Politics has once again become religious.”
—Michel de Certeau (1925–1986)