Applying Porter’s Five Forces to Fix U.S. Politics

Katherine Gehl, a former CEO and the founder of the Institute for
Political Innovation, and Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard
Business School, apply his Five Forces framework to explain why
U.S. politics are dysfunctional. They argue that the Republican and
Democratic parties make up an industry duopoly with high barriers
to entry and low consumer power, and that the resulting lack of
competition incentivizes these two dominant players to avoid
compromises with majority support. Gehl and Porter provide specific
innovations on how to enhance competition and better serve the
public, including nonpartisan primary elections and ranked-choice
voting. Gehl and Porter are coauthors of the new book “The Politics
Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and
Save Our Democracy” and the HBR article “Fixing U.S. Politics."