On the Side of the Angels by Rosenblum Nancy L.; Rosenblum Nancy L. L.;

Author:Rosenblum, Nancy L.; Rosenblum, Nancy L. L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Political parties, with all their well-known human and structural shortcomings, are the only devices thus far invented by the wit of Western man which with some effectiveness can generate countervailing collective power on behalf of the many individually powerless against the relatively few who are individually—or organizationally—powerful.242

Partisans drive deliberation. Not some abstract ideal of impartiality or good citizenship but partisanship and its challenges is activating, even if it is aversive to some. Deliberation is likely to be interesting and urgent only when it is about choosing sides. By their regular participation and exhibition of emotional commitment, partisans demonstrate that making decisions and choosing sides is a value. I could say, contrary to the spirit of deliberative theorists, that the objective of deliberation is improved partisanship and that improved partisanship is more important for democracy than independence, and I argue as much in the next chapter.

Men, Not Measures

One limitation of deliberation from the standpoint of what parties do is captured by the confession: “It would…be normatively pleasing if deliberation reduced the role of candidate personality in vote choice.”243 What advocate of deliberation does not share the rueful observation that “judging a candidate’s political character from his or her personal character, having first judged personal character from media character, is far more inaccurate than judging a book by its cover”?244 Perhaps deliberative forums could improve judgment of character so that assessments are not altogether subjective, lucky, or dead wrong. They could provide at least some basis for trust in what voters and potential supporters and endorsers think they see. But personality seems to be the limit case: all the correctives imagined and implemented can be undone by this ultimate vicissitude of politics. Deliberative democratic theorists want measures, not men. This is impossible. Rescuing party politics from the unreasonable and from everything willful is unreasonable. More important, it is unfaithful to representative democracy.

Bernard Manin reminds us that representative government is not self-government and that elections introduce what he calls an “aristocratic” element into democracy. He means that unlike the ancients’ democratic mechanism of filling offices by lot, elections are explicitly opposed to government by the people. From this standpoint, modern democracies are really mixed constitutions, and individual candidates standing for election are antidemocratic. Apart from the historical contrast Manin constructs, however, the term “aristocratic” is misleading because the men and women who are recruited and come up through party politics do not comprise a social or economic elite. They are not a Madisonian natural aristocracy, either, dependably refining and enlarging the public view. There is nothing outstanding about the quality of their moral reasoning. Nor are candidates as a class exceptional along some dimension of political mechanics—superb “organization” types or exemplary placatory professional politicians. Manin’s contribution is to draw theoretical attention to the individual candidate, to personality and the audience for it.

Parties care about candidates’ personalities, of course. Personalities raise money and excite turnout. Candidates suffer from drab. At the same time, the presence of “traits” adds a gigantic indeterminacy to party politics—it is the ultimate vicissitude.

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