Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-11T04:29:58.258Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Commitment and the Value of Partisanship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2016

LEA YPI
LEA YPI*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
*
Lea Ypi is Associate Professor, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street WC2A 2AE, London ([email protected]).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article defends the value of partisanship for political commitment. It clarifies what political commitment is, how it resembles and differs from other forms of commitment, and under what conditions it can prosper. It argues that political commitment is sustained and enhanced when agents devoted to particular political projects form a lasting associative relation that coordinates future action both on behalf of their future selves and of similarly committed others. Partisanship contributes to the feasibility of such projects, and helps strengthen them from a motivational and epistemic perspective. Although partisanship is also often criticized for sacrificing individuals’ independence of thought and action, if we value political commitment, this is a necessary trade-off.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 110 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 601 - 613
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aldrich, John J. 2009. “Parties, Partisanship and Democratic Politics: Review Symposium on On the Side of Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship by Nancy L. Rosenblum.” Perspectives on Politics 7 (3): 621–9.Google Scholar
Alinsky, Saul D. 1971. Rules for Radicals. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Anderson, Lisa R., and Charles, A. Holt. 1997. “Information Cascades in the Laboratory.” American Economics Review 87 (4).Google Scholar
Aristotle. 2000. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bikhchandani, Sushil, Hirshleifer, David, and Welch, Ivo. 1992. “A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational Cascades.” Journal of Political Economy 100 (5): 992–1026.Google Scholar
Bluntschli, Johan Caspar. 2002. “What is a Political Party?” [1869]. In Perspectives on Political Parties, ed. Scarrow, Susanne. New York: Palgrave, 75–82.Google Scholar
Bonotti, Matteo, and Bader, Veit. 2014. Parties, Partisanship and Political Theory. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bratman, Michael. 1987. Intentions, Plans and Practical Reason. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bratman, Michael E. 2007. Structures of Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Cheshire. 2009. “What Good is Commitment?” Ethics 119 (4): 613–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, John. 1977. “Friendship and the Good in Aristotle.” The Philosophical Review 86 (3): 290–315.Google Scholar
Cooper, John. 1993. “Aristotle on Political Animals and Civic Friendship.” In Neera Friendship: A Philosophical Reader, ed. Badhwar, Kapur. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 319–20.Google Scholar
Davis, Angela. 1975. An Autobiography. London: Hutchinson of London.Google Scholar
Disch, Lisa, Aldrich, John H., Carothers, Thomas, and Dalton, Russell J.. 2009. “Parties, Partisanship, and Democratic Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 7 (3): 621–9.Google Scholar
Druckman, James, Peterson, Erik, and Slothuus, Rune. 2013. “How Elite Partisan Polarization Affects Public Opinion Formation.” American Political Science Review 107 (1): 57–79.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris, Abrams, Samuel J., and Pope, Jeremy C.. 2004. Culture War? The Myth of Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1988. The Importance of What We Care About. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 2006. The Reasons of Love. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilabert, Pablo and Lawford-Smith, Holly. 2012, “Political Feasibility: A Conceptual Exploration.” Political Studies 60 (4): 809–25 811.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Margaret. 1999. “Obligation and Joint Commitment.” Utilitas 11: 143–63.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Margaret. 2000. Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert E. 2008. Innovating Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goodin, Robert E. 2012. On Settling. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heller, Hermann. 2000. “Political Democracy and Social Homogeneity.” In Weimar: A Jurisprudence of Crisis, eds. Jacobson, A. and Schlink, B.. Berkeley: University of California Press, 256–64.Google Scholar
Helm, Bennett. 2008. “Plural Agents.” Noûs 42: 17–49.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Mark J. 2009. “Review Article: Putting Polarisation in Perspective.” British Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 413–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hibbing, John H., and Theiss-Morse, Elizabeth. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jensen, Mark. 2009. “The Limits of Practical Possibility.” Journal of Political Philosophy 17 (2): 168–84.Google Scholar
Jerit, Jennifer, and Barabas, Jason. 2012. “Partisan Perceptual Bias and the Information Environment.” The Journal of Politics 74 (3): 672–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelsen, Hans. [1929] 2013. The Essence and Value of Democracy, eds. Urbinati, Nadia and Accetti, Carlo Invernizzi. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kropotkin, Peter. [1889] 1971. Memoirs of a Revolutionist. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Lohmann, Susanne. 1994. “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989-91.” World Politics 47 (1): 42–101.Google Scholar
Mann, Thomas E., and Ornstein, Norman. 2006. The Broken Branch. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Muirhead, Russell. 2014. In Defence of Party Spirit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mutz, Diana. 2006. Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative versus Participatory Democracy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan, and Reifler, Jason. 2010. “When corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptions.” Journal of Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pankhurst, Emmeline. [1914] 2013. My Own Story. London: Eveleigh Hash.Google Scholar
Pushkin, Alexander. 2003. Eugene Onegin, trans. Johnston, Charles. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Redlawsk, David. 2002. “Hot Cognition or Cool Consideration? Testing the Effects of Motivated Reasoning on Political Decision Making.” Journal of Politics 64 (4): 1021–44.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, Nancy. 2010. On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. [1949] 1994. What is Literature? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul. [1953] 1968. The Communists and Peace, with a Reply to Claude Lefort. New York: George Braziller.Google Scholar
Sherman, Nancy. 1993, “Aristotle and the shared life.” In Friendship: A Philosophical Reader, ed. Badhwar, Neera Kapur. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 319–20.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2000. “Deliberative Trouble? Why Groups Go to Extremes.” The Yale Law Journal 110 (1):71–119.Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass. 2009. Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Urbinati, Nadia. 2014. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
White, Jonathan. 2014. “Transnational Partisanship: Idea and Practice.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (3): 377–400.Google Scholar
White, Jonathan. 2015. “The Party in Time.” British Journal of Political Science, doi: 10.1017/S0007123415000265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Jonathan, and Ypi, Lea. 2010. “Rethinking the Modern Prince: Partisanship and the Democratic Ethos.” Political Studies 58 (4): 809–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Jonathan, and Ypi, Lea. 2011. “On Partisan Political Justification.” The American Political Science Review 105 (2): 381–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, Jonathan, and Ypi, Lea. 2016. The Meaning of Partisanship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ypi, Lea. 2011. Global Justice and Avant-Garde Political Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.