One of the important points in Aurelian Craiutu’s thoughtful review of our book concerns its method. Has an analytical-philosophical approach taken us too deeply into abstract theorizing, detached from the historical reference points that a Begriffsgeschichte might highlight? We frame the book as a contribution to contemporary democratic theory. Its approach is designed to address the debates central to present-day scholarship. Justification, deliberation, obligation, and compromise—these are some of the key themes of democratic theory today, and ones on which we try to shed light. But a sharp distinction between analytical and genealogical approaches is something the book resists. The first two chapters are historical in focus, looking at how the concept of party has developed over time, and how neighboring concepts such as faction evolved in parallel and contradistinction to it. We take some care to embed our analysis in a conceptual frame sensitive to past usage.

Presumably one reason Craiutu asks about method is that he feels choices here have substantive implications for the account. Could an analytical orientation have led us to exclude too much of the complexity of real-world politics? Where are the abortion activists, firearms advocates, religious extremists, and others who belong “in any realistic picture of democratic politics”? Our intention in focusing on the partisan was not to wish them away. Clearly, there are influential figures in contemporary politics who are far removed from the partisan ethos we describe, some in the ranks of groups that call themselves parties. Rather than a description of politics as one finds it, we wanted an account that could orient critique. The book tries to highlight the relevant standards to which partisan collectives may be held, as well as to challenge some currently popular catch-all terms such as populism, which have been used to cluster such diverse phenomena as Donald Trump’s “alt-Right” ascendancy and the Jeremy Corbyn-led transformation of the British Labour Party. Ideal types may simplify, but hopefully they can be the basis of important distinctions too.

More profoundly, Craiutu seems to fear not just that we have overlooked the place of the nonpartisan in politics but that we have missed the dangers intrinsic to partisanship. He suggests that we are silent on such everyday features as bias, echo chambers, and dichotomous thinking. Have we air-brushed these bad habits from our account? Our argument is in fact more challenging: we offer a conditional defense of exactly these things. The single-mindedness of the partisan can be a positive or negative quality, depending on how it is exercised and the ends to which it is put (Chap. 4). A good political project, just like a bad one, prospers or fails in part by the energies of its adherents. Commitment—the willingness to stick to a cause and consistently oppose those who would thwart it—is a basic ingredient in positive change. Sometimes it may be put to bad uses, as perhaps with the ethnic and sectarian movements that Craiutu highlights. But if one tries to banish the commitment of partisans from politics, one loses a powerful resource for creating a more just and legitimate political and social order.

How can one ensure that partisans are the enlightened kind who have “assimilated the lessons of Kant, Rousseau, and Rawls”? Difficult indeed, and certainly no easier than cultivating those moderate souls who have absorbed the lessons of Raymond Aron and company. But whatever the challenges facing party democracy today, the contemporary world is not without its promising partisan formations, some discussed in the text. A principal aim of The Meaning of Partisanship is to defend their like from the charge of irrationality, reconstructing the principled stance that the best of them already adopt.