U.S. Politics Are Dysfunctional: Here's How Industry Competition Theory Can Help Repair the System

Harvard Business ReviewMonday, October 26, 2026

Summary

Marketers are increasingly voicing concerns over ineffective ad campaigns that generate impressive dashboard metrics but fail to drive actual sales, a phenomenon labeled as "bullspend." This issue highlights a disconnect between marketing performance indicators, such as impressions, and tangible business outcomes.

A deeper analysis reveals that the U.S. political landscape operates similarly to a monopolistic industry, dominated by a duopoly of Republicans and Democrats. Former CEO Catherine Gale and Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter apply Porter's Five Forces framework to illustrate how this political structure perpetuates dissatisfaction among voters while ensuring the parties' continued dominance. The entrenched system fosters polarization, reducing accountability and hindering bipartisan cooperation, which ultimately stifles effective governance.

Gale and Porter propose a solution to this systemic issue through a "Final Five" voting model, which aims to revamp elections by introducing a nonpartisan top-five primary system. This approach would allow candidates from all parties to compete on a single ballot, with ranked choice voting determining the winner. By broadening the candidate pool and encouraging competition, this model seeks to enhance accountability and responsiveness in politics, transforming the current win-lose dynamic into a more beneficial win-win scenario for American voters and the political system as a whole.

Show Notes

U.S. Politics Are Broken: Here's How Industry Competition Theory Can Help Fix the System

25 Oct 2024

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Unhealthy competition is at the root of political dysfunction. Applying a famous business framework can help identify the best ways to fix it.

(This video was originally published in 2020.)

Although people tend to think of the American political system as a public institution based on high-minded principles, it’s not. Politics behaves according to the same kinds of incentives and forces that shape competition in any private industry.

Our elections and our legislative systems are drowning in unhealthy competition: The political-industrial complex wins, and the public interest loses. Business, in pursuing its short-term interests, has become a major participant in the politics industry, exacerbating its dysfunction.

We can have healthy competition in politics—results, innovation, and accountability—by redesigning how we vote to connect acting in the public interest with getting reelected. Katherine Gehl's application of Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework illuminates the root causes of political dysfunction and points to the most powerful levers for transformation.

For more, see Katherine Gehl and Michael Porter's book, "The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy", at https://amzn.to/2HB12Cu

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