In 1956 William Whyte lamented in "The Organisation Man" that bosses were becoming anonymous conformists, ruling by consensus rather than charisma.
Part of the difficulty was Billy himself, who had always run the organization with a light hand, ruling by consensus, and he did not want to appear to be steering the enterprise toward his son.
It guarantees that even when there's an elite consensus behind whatever the ruling party wants to do (whether it's invading Iraq or passing Obamacare), there will always be a reasonably passionate opposition as well.
In the mid-20th century, however, nationalism, though tainted by the blood of European minorities, was the default consensus-building ideology of ruling elites everywhere in Asia and Africa.
An internal report commissioned by Mr. Paterson himself found that staff workers often had little idea where their boss was, and that he shied from imposing his authority, ruling instead by an ill-defined consensus.
In cases where there was not a clear consensus on what line the leader should take, the editor issues his ruling.
His early reforms attempted to restore a national consensus; one of these, the National Pact signed in 1989, drew together the ruling party, the legal opposition, the Islamists, and all the national organizations.
It is customary for the ruling party to make its choice, and then to try to achieve a consensus.
The president of the body does not vote on its decisions and has a largely consultative role, ruling on points of order and convening delegations to assess differences in position and build consensus.
The consensus seemed to be that his political life is finished because of it, and indeed DSK himself is ruling out a return to politics.
