Partisanship as a political identity
Beyond instrumental conceptions of political parties
The point of departure is the oft-asserted notion that there is a normative-empirical gap in the study of political parties. Or, to put it differently, political scientists’ post-war fascination with political parties has to a surprisingly limited degree spilled over into normative and democratic theory.
The gap refers to the notion that the normative potential of parties has generally been underestimated. What, more precisely, does the gap consist in, and how may it be bridged? One way of thinking about the gap is to see it as a case of intellectual hegemony. The dominant rational or social choice-inspired perspective in the study of political parties is not concerned with normative issues and is largely impervious to any normative-empirical gap.In her magnum opus On the Side of the Angels, Nancy Rosenblum suggests an alternative reading of partisanship as a political identity. Does this reading of partisanship and political parties have more traction with regard to bridging the normative-empirical gap? John Erik Fossum argues that properly addressing that question requires paying explicit attention to political identity.
About the speaker
John Erik Fossum is professor in Political Science at the ARENA Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo and currently he is Visiting Professor at ACCESS EUROPE. Previously, he was professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen.
Location
VU University, Metropolitan building, VU Z-209