Jonathan White and Lea Ypi have written an ambitious book that seeks to contribute to contemporary democratic theory by rejuvenating the study of partisanship. They want to retrieve from oblivion a meaning of partisanship that “emphasizes principled constraints on partisan action” (p. 155). In this regard, they follow in the footsteps of Nancy Rosenblum’s On the Side of Angels (2010) and Russell Muirhead’s The Promise of Party in a Polarized Age (2014). Their goal is to sketch a novel ethics of partisanship that can strengthen the unity and integrity of our political order.

Many political theorists agree that a viable democracy depends on the existence of a vibrant associational life consisting of a multiplicity of social networks, associations, trade unions, churches, and parties. All of these associations are credited with enhancing the quality of democracy by promoting open fora for public deliberation, self-government, and collective rule. Yet pluralism often entails messy partisanship, and civil and political associations can also divide citizens by making dialogue and cooperation extremely difficult.

White and Ypi are sanguine about the concept of partisanship and believe that, properly defined, it is indispensable to democratic societies in which the exercise of collective authority and individual rights must take into account larger normative concerns. Their definition of partisanship, relying at times on Hans Kelsen’s, is that of “an associative practice that brings like-minded individuals together in order to secure them actual influence in shaping public affairs” (p. 78). Their preferred form of partisanship emphasizes ideals of public justification as a constitutive element of partisanship distinguished by “a commitment to persuade others of their views through the appeal to reasons that can be generally shared” (p. 3). These principles and aims are thought to be generalizable in a Kantian, Rousseauian, and Rawlsian way.

In Chapter 3, the authors situate their account of partisanship in a tradition of democratic theory committed to the importance of political justification, and then highlight both the dangers of power politics and the pathologies of partisanship. They point out a set of obligations based on the principles of contract, reliance, and reciprocity analyzed in Chapter 5. Any partisan demands, they argue, “need to be widely accessible, involving an attempt to move beyond a particularist viewpoint with the aim of demonstrating public appeal” (p. 61). In their view, partisanship must always be constrained by standards of public reason and should contribute to “the articulation and channeling of principled disagreements by rendering political projects visible and susceptible to comparison” (p. 76).

Throughout The Meaning of Partisanship, White and Ypi maintain a clear distinction between parties and interest groups, and insist that parties properly conceived should not be primarily about interest representation and must remain distinct from corporatist actors. According to this view, parties are expected to offer “principled justification for the particular combination of the ends they promote” (p. 26). By conceiving partisanship as a form of “trial by discussion vital to advancing the democratic ideal of collective rule” (p. 77), the two authors are led to making a distinction between good/great and bad/small parties, as well as between good and bad forms of partisanship. The first type of parties are those that seek to articulate “a non-partial view of the public good” and “contribute to identifying the general interest rather than undermining it” (p. 48; emphasis in the original). This view accords with an older conception of parties that the authors derive in part from the work of Johann Bluntschli. On this account, if parties seek to gain power, they are expected to do so only in order to advance a certain conception of the common good and national interest. Rather than being a mere mechanism for representing group interests, parties aspire to become “a vehicle for channeling the general will” (p. 54). The question then arises on what grounds a distinction can be made between good and bad parties other than by appealing to the elusive and always contested concepts of general will and common good. One might wonder, then, how such an approach can help us distinguish partisan claims that only seek to advance sectoral interests from those that take into account the demands of public justification and common interest.

White and Ypi believe that partisanship must not be limited to a single issue or within the confines of the nation-state, but should develop a wide-ranging agenda over a longer term and on a global stage. This would entail cross-temporal and delocalized projects based on ongoing associative practices formed and sustained by all those sharing a particular interpretation of a set of common values and a common view on how power should be exercised. Although the authors briefly discuss the center-right transnational partisanship that lasted until the 1960s in Western Europe and mention in passing the transnationalism of the Socialist Internationals, their conception of transnational partisanship (sketched in Chapter 9) remains ambivalent. Their argument might have been stronger if they had devoted more attention to the current debates about the future of the European Union.

If the authors’ intention is admirable, one wonders, then, if they chose the best method for studying such a complex concept as partisanship. For in spite of their interest in developing a political political theory, to use Jeremy Waldron’s term, their perspective seems too abstract and leaves out several groups that have an important say in today’s politics. The first comprises those fixated on a single issue (abortion, gun rights, immigration, identity politics, etc.) with whom it is often difficult to compromise because their arguments are couched in ideological, “either/or” rather than “more or less,” negotiable terms. The authors claim that “an uncompromising stance violates the ethics of partisanship by choosing single-mindedness over the continuation of joint struggle,” (p. 150), but they do not really demonstrate this point in the end. I looked in vain for the concept of extremism in the book and missed it, especially in Chapters 7 (“Partisan Compromise”) and 8 (“Revolutionary Compromise”) where it should have been discussed at some length. Not surprisingly, the book has little or nothing to say about the partisan echo chambers that encourage ignorance, alternative facts, fake news, and a Manichaean view of the world.

The second missing group consists of independents, centrists, and moderates who form different categories that would need to be included in any realistic picture of democratic politics. It is not a coincidence that the concept of moderation, too, is absent from the index of the book (the same also applies to Rosenblum’s and Muirhead’s books). In reality, partisanship, civility, compromise, and moderation belong to a larger semantic field from which they derive their significance. Scholars who want to study any one of them must explore both their synonyms and antonyms, including fanaticism, radicalism, and zealotry. That is why a normative approach inspired, to a great extent, by analytical philosophy—which White and Ypi define as “rational reconstruction”—may not be able to render full justice to the complexity of these concepts and should be complemented by the Begriffsgeschichte (“history of concepts”) approach. Otherwise, it risks glossing over a good part of the substance of real politics and veers into the realm of ideal theory in which ideological, ethnic, and religious considerations play a very limited role. In reality, partisanship often feeds upon identity-based divisions and “friend—foe” relations, often furthered by religion and ethnicity, which cast doubt on the possibility of transnational partisanship, world state, and cosmopolitanism.

To conclude, White and Ypi must be applauded for tackling such a complex topic as the relation between partisanship and democracy. Yet if the latter needs open-minded partisans, it is not clear how we should go about making sure that most of them are enlightened ones who have read and assimilated the lessons of Kant, Rousseau, and Rawls. Since the approach presented in this book applies to consolidated democratic settings, one wonders if and how it might also be used for the study of fledgling democracies and nondemocratic or illiberal regimes. Moreover, one would need some guidance on the type of institutional design capable of fostering habits of compromise, moderation, and civility. Without a discussion on this topic, it remains unclear how the normative type of partisanship defended by the authors could work even in societies that take diversity and pluralism of ideas seriously. We certainly need better forms of partisanship and more enlightened citizens, but one wonders how exactly improving the quality of partisanship could serve as a compass in an increasingly confusing world dominated by the likes of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin, or Nicolás Maduro.

Perhaps what we (really) need is a new institutional design and a new culture that would put a premium on moderation and compromise. Our first president might be a good example in this regard. “I was no party man myself,” Washington once confessed in a letter to Jefferson from July 6, 1796, “and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.” While he tried to be nonpartisan, Washington was never neutral, lukewarm, or indifferent to the common good, nor was he ever fanatic or single-minded in his devotion to his principles. Instead, he had a sound sense of direction and balance and knew how to trim between the interests and claims of different groups, by sacrificing the nonessential in order to preserve the essential. As such, he continues to remind us that the proper functioning of democratic institutions depends on a sound balance of powers and a set of virtues such as common sense, responsibility, and moderation, which could offset party animosities, populist demagogues, and local prejudices.