Shellfishness in politics, and reflections on the role of science

Paragraphs like these make me scratch my head:

Democratic leaders this week pledged to move a comprehensive immigration bill through Congress this year, which would include a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. As a political issue, immigration has potential benefits and risks for Democratic candidates. But the focus by party leaders makes clear they see the it as an overall winner (sic).

Less clear is whether Congress will pass any legislation. Republicans may be hesitant to cooperate if immigration proposals are viewed as a pre-election tactic. Without Republican support, the measure cannot pass the Senate.

That's from today's Wall Street Journal.

What happened to cooperation? Even if the immigration legislation stands to help Democrats in November, why wouldn't the Republicans support it if they believe it is quality legislation? Furthermore, why is the "focus by [Democratic] party leaders" on immigration (probably rightly) assumed to convey the selfish interests of power-grabbing politicians? Why can't it just be a good idea that will help people? Whatever happened to being a servant of the state?

Politics has always been (and will continue to be) a dirty game. But is there any way we can rig incentives such that the interests of politicians better align with the interests of their constituents? How can we make politics more productive toward the end of prosperity?

This is a question into which evolutionary psychology might be able to provide some insight. It is a situation in which the normative claim -- politicians should work with their constituents' interests in mind prior to their own -- is fairly obvious, but also one in which the empirical claims -- i.e. politicians generally serve themselves more than others because xxxx, and doing xxxx will effectively move the system toward the normative standard -- are emphatically not obvious. Science can't answer normative questions, but it can answer empirical ones, and, when looking for the means to achieve normative standards, it is just as important to have the empirical answers as it is to have the normative answers.

The more we learn about our evolved (social) psychologies, the better chance we have at "nudging" ourselves and our societies in the right direction.