University at Buffalo School of Law Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2000 Can Party Politics Be Virtuous? James A. Gardner University at Buffalo School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles Part of the American Politics Commons, and the Law Commons Recommended Citation James A. Gardner, Can Party Politics Be Virtuous?, 100 Colum. L. Rev. 667 (2000). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/244 This article originally appeared at 100 Colum. L. Rev. 667 (2000). Reprinted by permission. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CAN PARTY POLITICS BE VIRTUOUS? James A. Gardner* American political thought has historically been dominated by two dif- ferent conceptions of politics. One model conceives of politics as an arenafor the virtuous and impartial pursuit of the common good, the other as an arena for the pursuit of private interest. Political parties perform signifi- cantly different functions in each model, leading them to divergent prescrip- tions concerning appropriate legal regulation of parties. This divergence suggests that choosing some regulatory regime for political parties necessarily requires casting one's lot with some conception of politics, and in so doing to favor its emergence. Madison, however, hoped that political institutions could be designed which would render such a choice unnecessary by perform- ing well in the presence of either virtue or self-interest.