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Political justification figures prominently in contemporary political theory, notably in models of deliberative democracy. This article articulates and defends the essential role of partisanship in this process. Four dimensions of justification are examined in detail: the constituency to which political justifications are offered, the circumstances in which they are developed, the ways in which they are made inclusive, and the ways in which they are made persuasive. In each case, the role of partisanship is probed and affirmed. Partisanship, we conclude, is indispensable to the kind of political justification needed to make the exercise of collective authority responsive to normative concerns.

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This article lays out and defends the role of political parties in cultivating aAt the heart of these concerns seems to be the vitality of the democratic ethos itself, understood as a positive conviction amongst citizens of the worth of engaging with collective political agency so as to exercise the fundamental democratic principle of collective self-rule. This paper explores the conditions necessary to the maintenance of this conviction, and advances an ideal-typical conception of the role of political parties in promoting it. It does so not by providing a comprehensive empirical account of the current challenges faced by parties in Western countries, or by seeking to offer a positive causal model for contemporary processes -these issues have already been carefully explored by other scholars. Rather, the paper takes a distinctly theoretical route. It 2 begins by suggesting that, at least since the advent of democracy as collective self-rule, conviction in the worth of collective political agency has drawn on three sources: first, an ability amongst citizens to articulate political ideals that can be addressed through collective action (the normative source); second, a willingness to see these goals as ours, in the sense that our own fate or that of those with whom we identify is bound up in their achievement, and that they may require 'our' collective engagement to be met (the motivational source); and third an understanding that political agency can be institutionally applied to secure them (the executive source). The article then examines which modes of civic engagement, if any, can nourish these sources, and argues that the crucial role is best played by political parties. The paper goes on to show that although there are other forms of civic activity which are able to cultivate some of the three sources mentioned, the party is unique in being able to address all.In contemporary scholarship, despite the industry with which empirical research on parties continues to be conducted, their centrality in rendering meaningful the idea of

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