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237 pages

English

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Political theorists typically define political action in terms of rational potential rather than conflict, and for this reason neglect the partisan nature of political experience. This volume redresses this neglect, focusing on the interrelated questions of whether the task of political theory is to find some means of containing partisan politics and whether political theory is itself separate from partisan politics. Each section of the book corresponds to one of three ways of conceiving the optimal or necessary relationship between political theory and partisan political struggle. The first section considers the extent to which partisan politics requires constitutional consensus and the degree to which such a consensus requires correct theoretical underpinnings. The second focuses on the compatibility of theoretical deliberation with partisan politics, and the third on the possibility that political theory is itself necessarily a form or means of partisan engagement. The end result is a theoretically diverse but focused debate on this important but neglected subject.

Contributors include William E. Connolly, Mary G. Dietz, Adolf G. Gundersen, John G. Gunnell, Donald S. Lutz, Edward Bryan Portis, Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Ruth Lessl Shively, and Thomas A. Spragens, Jr.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART I. Political Theory and the Constitutional Foundations of Partisan Politics

1. Political Theorists on the Legitimacy of Partisan Politics
Arlene W. Saxonhouse

2. Political Theory and Constitutional Construction
Donald S. Lutz

3. Constitutional Doctrine and Political Theory
Edward Bryan Portis

PART II. Theoretical Deliberation and Partisan Politics

4. Rationality in Liberal Politics
Thomas A. Spragens, Jr.

5. Deliberative Democracy and the Limits of Partisan Politics: Between Athens and Philadelphia
Adolf G. Gundersen

6. Working in Half-Truth: Some Premodern Reflections on Discourse Ethics in Politics
Mary G. Dietz

PART III. Political Theory as Politics

7. Secularism, Partisanship and the Ambiguity of Justice
William E. Connolly

8. Political Theory and the Postmodern Politics of Ambiguity
Ruth Lessl Shively

9. Political Theory as Metapractice
John G. Gunnell

Epilogue

Contributors

Index

Informations

Publié par	State University of New York Press
Date de parution	01 février 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780791492574
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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Author
Portis, Gundersen, ShivelyBook Title SUNY
Political Theory and Partisan Politics
SUNY
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Political Theory and Partisan Politics
Edward Bryan Portis, Adolf G. Gundersen, and Ruth Lessl Shively, editors
Political theorists typically define political action in terms of rational potential Political
rather than conflict, and for this reason neglect the partisan nature of political
experience. This volume redresses this neglect, focusing on the interrelated questions of
whether the task of political theory is to find some means of containing partisan
politics and whether political theory is itself separate from partisan politics. Each section
of the book corresponds to one of three ways of conceiving the optimal or necessary
relationship between political theory and partisan political struggle. The first section
considers the extent to which partisan politics requires constitutional consensus and
the degree to which such a consensus requires correct theoretical underpinnings.
The second focuses on the compatibility of theoretical deliberation with partisan pol- Theory and
itics, and the third on the possibility that political theory is itself necessarily a form or
means of partisan engagement. The end result is a theoretically diverse but focused
debate on this important but neglected subject.
“This topic is important not only for the relationship between political science and
political theory, but also for the relationship between intellectuals and politics. This
collection breaks new ground. Those essays that discuss traditional thinkers place
them in new contexts; others give new life to continuing issues of constitutionalism Partisanand argumentation. This book contributes important insights.”
— Nancy S. Love, author of Understanding Dogmas and Dreams: A Text
Edward Bryan Portis is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University
and the author of Reconstructing the Classics: Political Theory from Plato to Marx,
Max Weber and Political Commitment: Science, Politics and Personality, and the
coeditor of Handbook of Political Theory and Policy Science. Adolf G. Gundersen is
the author of The Environmental Promise of Democratic Deliberation. Ruth Lessl
Shively is the author of Compromised Goods: A Realist Critique of Constructionist Politics
Politics.
A volume in the SUNY series in Political Theory: Contemporary Issues
Philip Green, editor
State University of New York Press
EDIT ED BYVisit our web site at
http://www.sunypress.edu
Edward Bryan Portis
Adolf G. Gundersen
Ruth Lessl ShivelyPOLITICAL THEORY AND
PARTISAN POLITICSIntroduction 1
INTRODUCTION
By its very nature political theory must be more concerned with
political potential than with the processes or means by which this potential,
however conceived, might be realized. To theorize is to generalize, if not
universalize, and the criteria by which satisfactory collective existence
is assessed, because more general, have greater theoretical priority than
the institutional procedures and political sentiments they rationalize.
And for the same reason, these procedures and sentiments are of greater
theoretical significance than the techniques that might be used to install
or instill them. The purpose of this collection of essays is not to bring this
bias into question, for it is entailed in theoretical endeavor itself; to be a
political theorist is to be so biased. Instead, our purpose is to explore one
of the consequences of the priority political theorists give to political
potential over political process.
This is the marked tendency of political theorists to define politics,
or at least the “political,” in ways that diverge from meanings most
often given the term. For most people, politics almost always refers to
a type of conflict or competition. Colloquially, politics usually r
something professional politicians are supposed to do, which is to
engage in an opportunistic competition for positions of authority. At
higher levels of conceptual sophistication politics typically is seen as
a struggle for influence through the mobilization of constituencies, as
opposed to the use of physical coercion or the control of scarce
resources. Military, economic, and political competition, in other words,
tend to be distinguished by the different means they employ. The fact
that politics is typically seen as a form of conflict, especially when in
conjunction with opportunism, certainly does much to explain the
negative connotations associated with the word in popular discourse.
Political theorists do not share this disdain for the word, largely
because “politics” usually means something different to them. For
example, in an influential essay of an earlier decade, Christian Bay
used the term “pseudopolitics” to characterize factional struggle over
interests or goals unguided by universal moral priorities. Genuine
politics, according to Bay, must proceed from a concern with, and
therefore from a conception of, human need. Bay confidently asserted
12 POLITICAL THEORY AND PARTISAN POLITICS
that a theoretically guided political science could eventually discern
basic human needs, and thereby “become a potent instrument for
promoting political development in the service of human
development” (Bay 1965, 51). Not only must genuinely political action be
normative, but it also must be “an instrument of reason.” From this
perspective, however much the champions of rational human need
may be forced by circumstance to resort to deceitful rhetoric, appeals
to parochial interest, or compromise in order to prevail over the
irrational or the malevolent, public issues are ultimately amenable to
rational solution and politics is, at least ideally, a rational rather than a
conflictual, partisan endeavor.
Many issues of public policy undoubtedly are matters of
knowledge, and perhaps an appreciable fraction of social animosity is the
result of ignorance and misunderstanding. Yet Bay’s rather facile
assumption that theoretically guided research will disclose an
unambiguous set of rational human needs would be questioned by many if
not most contemporary political theorists. And without this
assumption, “genuine politics” is likely to be just as partisan, and perhaps
even more conflictual than “pseudopolitics” since disagreement over
the nature of the good can be at least as deep as that resulting from
the clash of individual or group interests.
By extension, partisan divisions based upon competing
constellations of interests, such as class conflict, are in some ways less likely to
lead to serious political enmity than those based upon contradictory
moral or ideological priorities. Conflict generated by divergent
interests need not be “zero-sum.” Indeed, within a single political
jurisdiction there is almost always a significant degree of mutual dependence
among competing interests. As Karl Marx himself realized, class
conflict is not likely to lead to class war unless the system itself suffers
from “internal contradictions” that threaten the very existence of at
least one of the contestants. In the absence of such fundamental
structural instability, interest conflict is amenable to mutual
accommodation through negotiation and compromise. Whatever its faults,
1selfishness is not inherently inflexible, much less aggressive.
Moral commitment, on the other hand, is not always so readily
compromised. Even bargaining with like-minded counterparts of good
faith can be difficult, but bargaining with the morally corrupt,
dissolute, or obtuse is sordid business. And irrespective of the sincerity
with which proponents of divergent moral views attempt to find some
way to live together in peace, they ultimately must be committed to
changing one another’s minds about what is proper and necessary.
That is to say, they must be so committed if politics is to be based onIntroduction 3
fixed moral commitment to human needs. It is certainly possible for
groups with divergent moral commitments, or even religious beliefs,
to be unconcerned with one another’s priorities and practices, and this
mutual indifference undoubtedly facilitates bargaining and
accommodation. But this is simply another form of interest (or pseudo) politics,
one in which the interests of each self interested group are determined
by a common creed or identity rather than personal advantage.
Moral or ideological dispute can be deliberative only if the
contestants are convinced they might prevail through public discussion and
argument, that minds might be changed. This conviction makes sense
if the contestants agree on fundamentals and see themselves divided
primarily by matters of interpretation and implementation. We
suspect that to some degree this is usually the case. Even the word
partisanship, while denoting divisiveness, implies a whole of which the
partisan is part, and this implication may be the source of the negative
connotations the word “partisanship” carries with it. To the extent that
this is so, the fact that contestants share a larger consensus compels
them to consider the costs to the “whole” of unrestrained struggle, as
well as consider