We all know what the conventional wisdom says about political parties: They're divisive. They represent special interests. They ignore the general welfare. They corrupt. They tend to produce bribery in practice and hackery in writing. In partisan politics, everyone cheers for their own side, and we all lose. The smarter alternative, says the conventional wisdom, is to be bipartisan or even nonpartisan, to put aside factional differences and do what's right for everyone. The political independent, we are told, is the ideal voter, because independents stand above the fray of partisanship.
Harvard Professor Nancy Rosenblum seeks to overturn that conventional wisdom. Rosenblum is the author of the new book On the Side of the Angels: An Appreciation of Parties and Partisanship, and she discusses some of the main themes of the book in this month's lead essay. To her, political parties have been subject to an imperfect critique at best. Political parties serve many useful purposes, she argues: Among other things, they encourage participation, they offer a means of understanding and relating to current events, and they foster compromise where compromise is needed.
Not only is the standard story wrong about parties, says Rosenblum, it's also wrong about independents. Independent voters tend to be less well-informed and less engaged in civic affairs — not, as we are told, more. Independents' ideas about politics tend to be "chaotic and ad hoc," and thus it's not at all clear why they should be held up as models of democratic participation.
To discuss Rosenblum's counterintuitive thesis, we've invited the Cato Institute's Vice President for Research — and Cato Unbound Senior Editor – Brink Lindsey; Professor Henry Farrell of George Washington University; and Professor James Fishkin of Stanford University.
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