February, 2009

Dissensus on Consensus

by James Fishkin
The Conversation
February 24th, 2009

Henry Farrell misreads me. Reason-based collective will formation and consensus are not the same thing. Deliberative Polls self-consciously avoid any promotion of consensus. That is why the results are collected in confidential questionnaires, or secret ballots, to avoid the distorting social pressure of consensus-based forms of deliberation. And that is why I dispute the common [...]

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Deliberation and Dissensus

by Henry Farrell
The Conversation
February 20th, 2009

In principle, I’m happy to see that James Fishkin has found some common ground between advocates of deliberation and advocates of partisanship. This is a significant shift on his part — much of his previous work is not, to put it mildly, laudatory of partisans and partisanship. But in many ways I’m not. I’m [...]

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Partisanship and Deliberation: Can’t Have One Without the Other

by James Fishkin
The Conversation
February 19th, 2009

I think this dialogue has helped bridge some areas of discussion that rarely intersect — deliberative democracy and partisanship. Actually, the discussion makes clear that each needs the other. Consider two possibilities: deliberation without partisanship and partisanship without deliberation.
In a world of many partisans, deliberation without partisanship would be unrepresentative because it would leave [...]

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Partisanship in Everyday Life, and as an Organizing Principle of Democracy

by Nancy Rosenblum
The Conversation
February 19th, 2009

I picked up from correspondence with Jason Kuznicki and several of the comments an interest in pressing the uses and value of partisanship outside of political parties. The term “partisan” refers to advocates and activists in any cause, of course. We see these partisans everywhere. As I suggested earlier, partisans of social movements, activists in [...]

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A Brief Reply to Rosenblum

by Brink Lindsey
The Conversation
February 17th, 2009

Nancy’s response is a model of judicious, careful, and thoughtful argument. I don’t find much in it to disagree with. Which raises the question: why are our overall evaluations of partisanship so different? We both see a mix of good and bad in both partisanship and antipartisanship, so why does she end up [...]

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A Brief Reply to Farrell

by Brink Lindsey
The Conversation
February 12th, 2009

Henry argues that my criticisms of partisanship are valid enough, but that the vices I identify (ideological blinkers, differing standards of judgment for comrades and rivals) aren’t specific to party ID. I agree completely! The problems I discuss go to basic aspects of the human condition: namely, confirmation bias on the one hand and ingroup [...]

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Rosenblum’s Partisanship: Not Very Partisan?

by James Fishkin
The Conversation
February 12th, 2009

Nancy Rosenblum seems to have a view of partisanship that is not very partisan. She criticizes me for connecting partisanship with the desire to win elections and to mobilize voters. If partisans are not interested in those things, and if political parties are not focused on winning a Schumpeterian “competitive struggle for the people’s vote,” [...]

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Responses on Political Theory, Idealism, and Extremism

by Nancy Rosenblum
The Conversation
February 11th, 2009

Partisanship and Political Theory
Most of my thoughtful, empirically well-armed respondents have joined the conversation as social scientists. I will try to say something about the arguments and evidence they marshal in a moment. But first I want to remind readers of Cato Unbound that my turf is political theory. On the Side of the Angels [...]

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Partisanship, Ideology, and Loyalty

by Henry Farrell
The Conversation
February 10th, 2009

[Editors' Note: This post originally appeared at Crooked Timber. As it is part of the ongoing discussion among our participants this month, we've reprinted it here.]
Brink Lindsey criticized Nancy Rosenblum’s work on partisanship as follows:

she cites findings from the political science literature that independents tend to be less interested in politics, less informed [...]

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The Best of the Blogs: “Partisanship: Good or Bad?”

Editors’ note: Each month we search the web for stimulating responses to the discussion at Cato Unbound. We reprint the best of them here, and today we bring you a commentary by Professor Andrew Gelman of Columbia University. Professor Gelman is the author of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. He writes,

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Democracy, Partisanship, and Deliberation

by James Fishkin
Reaction Essay
February 9th, 2009

James Fishkin offers several models of what democracy is supposed to do. He weighs each in turn and proposes that deliberative democracy — defined as a process that “contain[s] some claim to representativeness with good conditions for deliberation” — is the one most worth having. Partisanship squares badly with it. What we need, he argues, is not more independents among the general voting population, but more independence among partisan voters.

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Partisanship and Extremism

by Henry Farrell
Reaction Essay
February 6th, 2009

In his response, Henry Farrell brings up the distinction between partisanship and extremism. He notes that although political parties clearly have useful coordinating and compromise-facilitating features, some issues may well not be appropriate matters for compromise. The problem, then — if there is one — would not be that so-called extremists are too partisan. It would be that they are unwilling to compromise. And perhaps on certain issues, they should be. Bloggers and the Democratic netroots movement are cited as illustrative examples, as is the refusal of many in the Democratic Party to compromise on the question of torture.

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Partisanship: Still Half-Empty

by Brink Lindsey
Reaction Essay
February 4th, 2009

In his response essay, Brink Lindsey reminds us of the shortcomings of American partisanship. Although parties provide information to voters, they do so in an skewed and superficial way. They exact ideological commitments that are hard to justify on their merits, and they constantly present a temptation to groupthink. American parties have changed, however, and for the better: Formerly, they were almost exclusively based on personal loyalty and patronage. Our parties have become ideological, but only imperfectly so, and they still do not present a deliberative space that conduces to rational, impartial citizenship.

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The Moral Distinctiveness of ‘Party ID’

by Nancy Rosenblum
Lead Essay
February 2nd, 2009

Lead essayist Nancy Rosenblum argues that political parties need a “moment of appreciation.” Schemes to minimize, frustrate, or avoid party politics, and replace it with bipartisanship or nonpartisanship all seem founded, to her, on misconceptions that date to the Progressive Era. Among these misconceptions are the ideas that nonpartisan decisionmakers are impartial, well-informed, and above the corrupting influence of politics. Parties, meanwhile, serve many useful functions in politics. They reduce transaction costs to new political entrants (at whatever level). They encourage the formation of political communities, and they act to inform and supply coherent narratives about current events. Further, the need to maintain winning coalitions means that political parties actually foster, rather than impede, political compromises.

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