Parties As Agents of Equal Political Freedom
Abstrak
This paper recovers and develops the normative justification of political parties that procedural democracy offers. In contrast to the prevalent neglect or grudging acceptance of parties as a necessary evil within democratic theory, we argue for the vital role of parties in ensuring equal political freedom. We expose the anti-party spirit of three core contemporary views of democracy—epistemic democracy, populism, and realism—and explain how their proposals to transcend, transform, or accept parties as sheer instruments threaten equal political freedom. We identify, instead, the key functions that, according to procedural democracy, parties perform for guaranteeing equal political freedom: ensuring citizen influence by rebalancing power relations, self-enforcing rules and controlling leadership, and practicing and educating in democratic mores. These functions may be used as criteria to judge existing parties and their capacity to strengthen democracy as well as to imagine and construct new and better ones. For each function, we specify its relation to equal political freedom, suggest what parties could do to better accomplish it, and indicate how their failure to do so can make democracy cease to be such.
Penulis (2)
Maria Paula Saffon
Nadia Urbinati
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2025
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 1×
- Sumber Database
- CrossRef
- DOI
- 10.1177/00905917251350108
- Akses
- Open Access ✓