Fromm USF June 28, 2021

The Best Prospects For, Limits on and Alternatives to Turning Political Parties

For Democracy in the 21st Century

Lecture VIII Political Parties for and Against Democracy

Prof. David Peritz

The Empirical Political Science Defenses of The Positive Roles Political Parties Play

“"The political parties created democracy and modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties.” (E.E. Schattschneider, Party Government, 1942) 1. Two-way transmission belts that convey communication between ordinary citizens

and their representative elites 2. Civil society organizations that allow for bottom-up, spontaneous grass roots

participation 3. Schools of political socialization that train new citizens and potential leaders alike

about issues, processes and the importance of fidelity to basic norms of constitutional democracy

4. Institutions for Mobilizing Participation and Making Political Choice in Complex Society Tractable for Ordinary Citizens who would Otherwise be Cognitively Overloaded

5. Loci of Retrospective Judgments through which Government is Held Accountable of Policy and Governance

Can We Repair and Defend Political Parties as Instruments of Democracy? Proposals from

Normative Political Theory

The Normative Political Theory Defense II. Reversing the Priority of Political Science in Light of Democratic Theory

A. Partisans Before Parties, Parties as the Carriers of Partisanship (Rosenblum) B. High Partisanship Produces Common Good Parties C. The Priority of Ethics in Both of these Views: Ethics of Leadership and Citizenship and the Dynamic

Between the Two

II. Accounts of the Positive Role Played by Parties when they Prioritize the Common Good and Select Appropriate Leaders

A. Madison’s View: Refine and Enlarge the Public’s View so that Public Policy and Law are More Consonant with the Public Good than if they Were Produced Directly by the Public Itself

B. Ziblatt’s History: Strong, Professionalized Parties Moderate Extremism and Panic in Favor of Pragmatism, and Keep Insurgent Groups from Gaining Power Directly

C. Lincoln’s Republicans as an Exemplary Common Good Party—and what this Illuminates about the Conditions for the Possibility of Such a Policy and its Likely Half-life

D. Rosenblums’ View: Parties Create Political Interests and Opinions, Formulate Issues, and Draw the Lines of Division in Normal Politics (autonomy of democratic politics, not derivative from pre-political social cleavages and interests)

E. Rosenbluth and Shapiro’s Account: Political Parties as Bundlers and Aggregators that Generate Coherent Policy Proposals and Cognitively Manageable Choices

F. Do Parties Need to Be Strengthened to Play these Roles? If So, How? Party Promoting Public Policy (Nature of Parties not Fixed but Instead Vary with Electoral Systems, Social Conditions and Particular Political Dynamics, and therefore are Susceptible to Influence via Law and Politics—including social movements)

Combining and Evaluating Muirhead’s and Rosenblum’s Defense of the Ethics of Partisanship

I. Partisanship is The Political Identity of Representative Democracy and Can be “High Partisanship” when it Carries with it a Strict Ethics Grounded in the Recognition of Partiality, Pluralism and the Likelihood of Loss (Regulated Rivalry and Fruitful Conflict) and the Very Idea that Parties are Instruments of Democracy

II. Values Governing the Political Morality of Partisan Identity A. Inclusiveness as a Conscious Partisan Value B. The Need to Create a Comprehensive Political Narrative that Constitutes a Majority and a Minority

—a “Single Basic Cleavage” C. The Disposition to Compromise—with Fellow Partisans, and with the Other Side D. The Right Kind of Attachment to a Partisan Conception of the Common Good: Passionate Yet

Reasonable III. Are these Accounts Persuasive in 2021?

A. The Problem of Political Ethics in the Absence of Policy to Enforce its Structural Pre-requisites B. The Need to Balance Party Identity with that of Citizen C. Social Movements, Experimental Democracy, and the Need to think of Extra-Partisan Political

Organizations and Institutions

Critical Conclusions Learned from Philosophy, Social Science and History

I. When Parties Function For Democracy Ideally they Function as Common Good Parties that Produce High Partisanship

II. But there are Tendencies that Push Parties and Partisanship in Less Democratic Directions A. Tendency of Parties to Pursue the Good of their Constituents, not the Common Good, and to

therefore Produce a Competitive, Pluralistic Conception of Democracy B. Intrinsic Tendencies to Oligarchy and Capture

i. Parties also Have Intrinsic Institutional Tendencies, Including Bureaucratization and Concentration of Power in Leaders and Functionaries—Note that the Defense of Strong Parties Requires Power be Concentrated within the Party

ii. The Tendency to Elite Capture: Parties Need Resources and, When they Lack Public Support and Wealth is Concentrated, the Hyper-Wealth Will Normally Have Disproportionate or Exclusive Influence

C. Parties may Mobilize and Exacerbate Deep Social Cleavages When this is to their Competitive Advantage (e.g. constant temptation to mobilize white racial resentment in American politics)

III. There are also Tendencies that Push Partisanship in Less Democratic Directions A. Partisan Polarization and In-Group, Out-Group Social Psychology (E. Klein) B. Identity Protecting Cognition (D. Kahan) C. Failure to “Hear the Other Side” and Engage in and Learn from Democratic Deliberation when

Partisanship Undermines a Civic Disposition

Can we Repair Partisanship by De-emphasizing it Institutionally?

I. Returning for a Moment to Karl Marx’s Deep Ambivalence About Parties and Representative Democracy

A. Representative Democracy as a form of Political Alienation Akin to the Religious Alienation of Human Potentials (e.g. “On the Jewish Question”)

B. The Eventual Embrace of the Communist Party (e.g. The Communist Manifesto) C. Returning to the Democratic Insights of the Young Marx

II. Is Representative Democracy a Coherent Concept? Recent Critics from Robert Dahl to Helene Landemore

III. Escaping Partisanship and Representation? Or De-centering Them in Light of their Limits?

A. Harnessing the Potential Democratic Value of Parties through… B. Policy C. Ethics and D. Institutional Reform to Reduce Reliance on Partisanship and Allow Other Political Identities

Greater Significance (esp. empowered, cooperative citizenship)

Are there Coherent Alternatives to Representative Democracy in the 21st Century? The Need to Escape the Hold of State-Centered Political

Imaginaries in the Name of Democratic Self-Repair

I. Self-selection or Direct and Deliberative Decision-Making (Dorf and Sabel; Fung and Wright) e.g. Participatory Budgeting

II. Deliberative Polling (Fishkin)

III. Lotteries, Sortition and Mini-Publics

IV. Crowd Sourcing

V. Referendums

VI. Citizens’ Initiatives and Referrals

VII.Will Reform Produce a More Democratic Form of Partisanship? Or Displace it Altogether?

The Abundance of Proposals for De-Emphasizing Elections and Representation

to Restore Democracy