Partisanship as Loyal Antagonism not Reasonableness

Complex representative democracies are unthinkable without political parties, but current polarised polities have fostered an antipartisan sentiment according to which parties and partisanship undermine the respect citizens need for one another and make them unresponsive not only to citizens’ claims but to reality as well. While normative theories of democracy traditionally share this antipartisan framework, many authors recently claimed that parties and partisanship, if properly constrained, are fundamental to promote essential functions of democracy. As rightly pointed out by Bonotti, this partisanship revival considers parties the “shapers and articulators of public reason” but it does not clarify which justificatory standards political parties should meet and how these standards can be compatible with the comprehensive doctrines that seem to characterise partisanship. Bonotti holds that parties and partisanship need to fulfil Rawlsian public reason requirements to strive for the common good and not defend particularistic interests as factions do. Even if I share the belief that it is important to normatively revaluate parties and partisanship, I challenge the above perspective and claim that it contains a problematic account of partisanship. This view, I contend, undermines the pluralism that should characterise a lively political debate, and it is biased against radical perspectives. It moreover underestimates the agonistic dimension of partisanship and develops a proposal that cannot properly guide political parties. To overcome these ambiguities, I develop a strictly political account of partisanship that is more open to disagreement and conflicts without collapsing into factionalism.