Resisting Abusive Legalism: Electoral Fairness and the Partisan Commitment to Political Pluralism
Herman, LE; Muirhead, R
Date: 8 April 2020
Journal
Representation
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge) for McDougall Trust
Publisher DOI
Abstract
This paper focuses on how electoral fairness is vulnerable to abuse by self-interested partisans – especially abuse that conforms to legally and constitutionally sanctioned procedures. This phenomenon sometimes labelled ‘abusive legalism,’ challenges the aspiration to design institutions that depend only on rationally self-interested ...
This paper focuses on how electoral fairness is vulnerable to abuse by self-interested partisans – especially abuse that conforms to legally and constitutionally sanctioned procedures. This phenomenon sometimes labelled ‘abusive legalism,’ challenges the aspiration to design institutions that depend only on rationally self-interested actors for their endurance. Electoral fairness in particular, we argue, depends on partisans who endorse and act from a commitment to political pluralism. We identify the normative reasons that make sense of such a commitment, and consider the difficulties involved in applying this commitment to practical projects of institutional reform. In this process, we define a theoretical framework that both adds to the expanding literature on democratic partisanship and provides a basis for further empirical research on the mechanisms of democratic backsliding.
Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy, and Anthropology
Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
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