The Meaning of Partisanship

White, Jonathan; Ypi, Lea

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684175.001.0001

Cited by 181 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 144 publications

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“…In the past decade, a number of democratic theorists have taken an interest in the normative dimension of partisanship, thereby making a first step towards bridging the existing divide between contemporary democratic theory and party studies (White and Ypi 2010;Rosenblum 2008;Muirhead 2006;Bonotti 2012Bonotti , 2014White 2014;White and Ypi 2011;Muirhead 2014;Rosenblum 2006, 2012;Rosenblum 2014;Wolkenstein 2016;White and Ypi 2016). This literature contrasts with minimalist theories of democracy which, albeit giving a strong role to parties, define them narrowly as coalitions of self-interested politicians competing to attract the vote of rational citizens (see for instance Downs 1957).…”

Section: Theorizing the Democratic Merits Of Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Partisanship: From Theoretical Ideal to Empirical Standard

Herman

2017

Am Polit Sci Rev

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In recent years, a number of scholars have taken parties and partisanship as objects of normative theorizing. They posit partisanship as a fundamentally democratic practice and develop a model of what partisans can do at their best to contribute to liberal democracy.However, the standards the literature puts forth remain insufficiently specified to serve as If parties fulfil such irreplaceable functions, this also implies that their failures will have consequences for the vitality of modern democracy (Goodin 2008). While a vast literature documents the democratic performance of political parties, party scholars have been reluctant to engage with contemporary democratic theory. This has resulted in a body of work that is generally under-theorized, and which tends to overlook some of the central affective and symbolic functions that parties perform (van Biezen and Saward 2008). This paper responds to these challenges with a model of democratic partisanship amenable to empirical study. My starting point is a recent body of democratic theory that takes partisanship as its main object, and from which I derive a number of standards for democratic partisanship. For the purpose of this article, I define partisanship as the routinized practices and discourses of the supporters, members and leaders of a particular party in support of a shared conception of the public good. 2 Partisanship is democratic when these routinized practices and discourses contribute to liberal democracy, understood as a system of limited representative government that ensures both popular self-rule 2 As emphasized by White and Ypi, partisanship conceived as the "collective will of partisans" can exist without a party structure at its centre (White and Ypi 2016, 23). For the purpose of this article, I focus on those more easily identifiable communities that find an organizational expression and are thus tied together by party support, membership or leadership.Lise Herman, Forthcoming, American Political Science Review 3 and respect for minority rights. The set of specific indicators that this article develops serves to empirically evaluate the democratic merits of partisan discourse more specifically.In what follows, I will first discuss the lack of engagement of party studies with democratic theory, and how existing theories of partisanship are either insufficiently refined or insufficiently comprehensive to empirically evaluate the democratic merits of partisan discourses and practices on their basis. In the second part of this paper, I further conceptualize these theories and focus on two main characteristics that the literature ascribes to democratic forms of partisanship:cohesiveness and respect for political pluralism. Starting from these two general concepts, I derive a series of more specific indicators that can serve to evaluate the extent to which the discourses of real-world partisans meet these normative ideals. The last section of the paper illustrates how this theoretical framework can be applied in empirical studies of...

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Section: Theorizing the Democratic Merits Of Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Democratic Partisanship: From Theoretical Ideal to Empirical Standard

Herman

2017

Am Polit Sci Rev

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“…It is meant to capture core features of particular political practices, but also to clarify how they ought to be structured. According to Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, partisanship is “an ongoing associative practice formed and sustained by those sharing a particular interpretation of how power should be exercised and with what scope” (White & Ypi, 2016, p. 21). In their view, such associations are more than interest groups or factions.…”

Section: Transnational Partisanship As a Vehicle For Constituent Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Extraordinary partisanship in the European Union: Constituent power and the problem of political agency

Patberg

2020

Constellations

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“…For justifications to be accepted, though, the reasons given for particular constitutional decisions—for example concerning the shape a future supranational order will take—must be rendered meaningful and intelligible to citizens. Here it helps a great deal to be able to draw on ideational foundations—ideas, values, and rhetorical figures—that have resonance with a wider public because they form part of political ideologies that are deeply rooted in the relevant societies (see White & Ypi, , Chapter 3)…”

Section: Transnational Partisanship and Constituent Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As far as support for the continual exercise of constituent power is concerned, a common ideational substrate is important because it can motivate those who aim at enacting constituent power (and others) to want the intended constitutional change to happen, encouraging them to put special efforts and energies into realizing their ambitions over an extended time. Theorists of parties sometimes speak in this connection with the motivational benefits of partisanship, understood as the capacity of ideological commitments to help agents endure motivational and epistemic obstacles to the achievement of their political project (White & Ypi, , pp. 85–96).…”

Section: Transnational Partisanship and Constituent Powermentioning

confidence: 99%